A/N: Yet again,
I am procrastinating on writing chapter 17. Blame Chev this time. (Still
searching for a BETA, btw.)
Will you believe in me
tonight?
The door opens. The door closes. A shirt rises, hangs in mid-air, and
falls with two bodies onto the side of the bed -- a long, lily-white leg
jutting out of a too-short skirt tucking up and hooking hard around a waist as
fingers interposed with jewelery and interlocked with his hair sink into his
skin, press into his chest and palm hollow of his back and grab the curve of
his ass and draw crescents of red pain sex pleasure want holding him
tight against her neck as he licks and nibbles and worships ivory skin carved
from solid marble and breathed life into by some decadent goddess of battle and
seduction; the other hand clawing at his back and tapering around his neck like
a lost child looking for solace or sanctuary as he makes her shiver and shake
and spasm in his arms.
It happened by random happenstance. She said Hi, they talked, he was
lonely, she was friend; overly friendly, so he said Bye but she followed him
because she had nothing better to do and, you know, it was okay to have company
on your birthday and dammit, she had to get him something he would remember her
by.
Ino didn't like to be forgotten. Naruto didn't like to be remembered
sometimes. It was strange, but it worked.
The whole day went by faster than either cared to admit to not liking.
All the bite marks impress a need to be with her, a set of lips glossed
over and painted peach plum rose-petal-pink press so tightly against his that
breathing is impossible. He gasps and sighs and smirks and smiles and it feels
so right when she kisses him because she tastes like a hundred-thousand
different flowers, not a single one tainted beautiful by blood and blood loss
-- rose petals on her breath, baby's breath on her skin and a rain forest of
wild, untamed scents in her hair like the smell of wild, wet-furred predators
stalking through the forest in the darkness of the night or the sweet silver
bell-taste of that first mist during January in her hair. She's so vibrant. So alive.
He can almost taste the beat of her heart between his teeth.
They started seeing more of each other after their impromptu hang out
session but said nothing more than Hi or Goodbye or How are you today as they
looked at each others eyes and thought: Does it hurt to breathe when your near
me too?
She smells like the forest and she smells like wilds he dreams of at
night when the Fox is lonely; of the neat forests and crystal clear-lakes and
endless fields of sunflowers that the Fox likes and therefore amplifies in his
mind so that she is perfect in everyway even though he already thought that and
knew that about her from the moment they found themselves alone on Team Seven's
Bride and she said to him, smiling a smile that reached her eyes and pulling
him towards her in the moonlight: "...Even though Sakura runs after the
shadow of her shattered prince I hold in my arms the fire of a Hokage and I
won't settle for second best so kiss me now and make it mean everything
its supposed to mean, Naruto. Kiss me and tell me that you love me because I'm
not settling for second best again."
The pain intensified in passing. A passing touch. A passing glance. A
passing conversation. A low fire that smoldered in their stomachs and behind
their navels like embers on the tails of a dying phoenix just before it ignited
in one last blaze of glory. Though they didn't know each other, though they
barely spoke to each other since their first meeting, it felt so completely
right for Naruto to ask her out on a date in that shy, boyish way of his that
she couldn't (didn't) have the heart to say no to him because he obviously
didn't know that you had to court the girl first to get her to like you and
then ask her to date you, to be with you, maybe even to love you.
Ino forgot Naruto never followed instructions, explicitly stated or
otherwise.
Teeth gnash and grind and bite and nip and take skin between lips; crush
and press and seal furiously against each other as tongues that taste of
cyanide and alcohol intermix and intermingle and dance a dance of passions-war.
He runs his tongue over her teeth, over her lips, across her tongue and she
doesn't let him have any power anywhere over her because she is a kunoichi and
kunoichi are not weak little flowergirls; they're warriors,and
now they're kissing so hard it hurts and he's bleeding and he
loves it.
It started with his arm resting around her shoulders during a movie he
thought was boring and fell asleep halfway into. It started with her hand
coasting over his during as they walked through Konoha and then her entire hand
gripping his wrist to lead him to a store she wanted to go into. It started
with him buying her a small bracelet to said 'sorry for sleeping on you/drooling
on your during the movie --Naruto' and it started with a hand that stayed
locked around his for the rest of the afternoon, neither remembering how or why
it got there. It started with little things, with small glances and
half-smiles, and mistakes and apologies and blushing at words that, in-context,
were perfectly innocent and sane.
Her top is made of leather, her bra is made of cotton, her skin is made
of silk. They hit the bed and she wraps both legs around him and he presses
down into her center as she rolls her hips in a fluid liquid rush that grinds
into his sex so hard he's seeing stars and seeing spots and panting for breath
through an invisible straw as he fumbles with her bra, fumbles with her top and
fumbles with her breasts like a blind man looking at the world for the first
time with eyes that aren't his. She's so soft, and so small, and so willing yet
she's so strong, and so craven, and so beautiful and ravenous for a tase of his
skin that only cupping her breasts makes her scream and only tracing the edge
of her areola with his tongue makes her buck her hips and bite her lips and rip
off his belt to plunge her hands into his pants without a hint of caring about
decency or personal space.
Though Ino knows Naruto would never hurt her, the one time she was ever
afraid of him was the time Naruto went Kyuubi on her during a mission and
annihilated; not killed, not wounded, not massacred but annihilated,an
entire company of Grass-Nin that had gotten the jump on them during a routine
scouting run. When he had finished killing them all, he had looked at her,
blood streaking his face and his hair like painted on stripes of thick paint
and his eyes glowing with the fires of hell itself. She had frozen, and then
his eyes, those eyes so fiery and incandescent that they burned right through
her, turned downward as he said: "Ino I...Ino I'm sorry..."
Though his voice was darker, deeper, like the rumbling of thunder off in
the distance, the words were all the same. The boy was all the same. She took
him in his arms and said: "I love you Naruto"
It was the first time she had said it and the only time Naruto had ever been
so shocked he cried until there was nothing left wet inside of him.
He is thick. Not long, but thick enough to make her have to wrap both hands
around him. Every part of his body is firm, toned, pale bronze muscle; nothing
marring a perfect tide of flesh but a strange tattoo around his navel and scar
right next to his heart, and she is envious of his perfection but selfish of it
all at the same time and she revels in the power she has over this man who
could kill her with a mere flicker of her power as her jerking hands bring him
to his knees.
Her parents don't approve of Naruto, but she doesn't care. Kakashi and
Iruka approve of Ino, and that's all that matters to her.
She wants to look good for her eventual in-laws, after all.
When Naruto hears her say this, he can't stop laughing. She thinks he's
beautiful when he smiles.
Naruto grins into the curve of her hip and she makes a sound like
oh-god-I've-never-been-touched-this-way-before, head tilting back, lips parting
and grinning and spine shuddering and he makes a noise in the dank dark
recesses of his throat that vibrates against her insides and her breasts and
purrs outwards on a sliding cascading of breath that surfs the smooth expanse
of her stomach in a hot, molten tide that makes things below her skin tighten
and twist and that answers her without words, clearly saying if-you-want-it-harder-I'll-be-more-than-glad-to-oblige.
They hit the floor, and he obliges. And obliges. And obliges.
They compliment each other by challenging each other to do better. Naruto
trains Ino to be strong, so that when the Jounin exams come around they both
face each other in the finals and Naruto only gets by one the skin of his teeth
and a handful of waters clones. Ino teaches Naruto how to cook, and how to
clean, and how to live life like a normal person -- becoming more than Naruto's
lover, friend, or wife; becoming his love, his sister, and his soulmate.
Though brain-death is found in drink, absolution is found in sex -- sex
to forget; sex to remember; sex that means everything to no one and nothing to
everyone; sex that matters because he's been afraid so afraid to tell her that
he loved her for longer than he could remember and she's been reluctant to
admit to herself that she prefers this; she always wanted this; she needs and
craves and loves the feel of his body, hard and built for war, beneath her
fingertips. She knows she wants to marry him and be with him forever; to always
have this and always have him because he makes her feel more than happy, more
then complete.
Uzumaki Naruto makes her feel perfect.
No, I'll believe in us
forever