Chapter 2: Morning After
F
He woke to the thin, gray light of dawn filtering through the lavender curtains. The rain had stopped, leaving a damp silence in its wake. His first conscious sensation was her warmth, the soft, solid reality of her back pressed against his chest. His second was the dull, pleasant ache in his limbs, a testament to the night. His third was the slow, insistent thickening of his cock, still nestled within the slippery heat of her from their last, exhausted joining hours ago.
She was asleep, her breathing deep and even. He didn’t move, barely dared to breathe. He simply savored it—the intimate clasp of her body around his, the way her slight frame fit perfectly against him, the smell of her skin and sex and dried lavender. His. The word beat in his blood with every pulse of his awakening erection.
He shifted, just an inch, a slow withdrawal followed by an even slower slide back in. She made a soft, unconscious sound in her throat, a muffled sigh. His jaw tightened. He did it again, a lazy, torturous rock of his hips. His hand crept around from her waist, his fingers finding the delicate jut of her hip bone, then sliding lower, through the damp thatch of dark curls, to the swollen nub beneath. He circled it, feather-light.
In her sleep, she pressed back against him, seeking more.
A feral satisfaction curled in his gut. He continued the gentle motion, his cock sliding in and out of her with imperceptible increments, his fingers working her with a hypnotic rhythm. He watched her face in the pale light. Saw the flutter of her eyelids, the faint parting of her lips. He wanted to be inside her when she woke. He wanted her first conscious thought to be of him, filling her.
Her breath hitched. Her eyes opened, green and cloudy with sleep, then sharpening into awareness. She didn’t startle. She went utterly still.
“Satoru,” she whispered, her voice husky with sleep.
“Shhh,” he murmured against the shell of her ear, not ceasing his slow, deep movements. “Just feel it.”
He felt the internal clutch of her muscles around him, a helpless, physical welcome. A shudder ran through her. She was wet, impossibly so, her body betraying her mind’s inevitable churn of guilt and shock. He knew that churn. He lived in it. Right now, he didn’t care. He worshipped it.
“I can’t…” she began, but the protest died as he sank deeper, a deliberate, grinding thrust that made her gasp.
“You can,” he said, his own voice rough. “You are.”
He withdrew completely, earning a sharp, involuntary whimper from her. Before she could speak, he moved, his hands firm on her shoulders, rolling her onto her stomach. She resisted for a second, a tensing of her spine, but he leaned over her, his chest to her back, his mouth at her ear.
“Please,” he said, and it wasn’t a request; it was a prayer and a command woven together.
She went pliant. He hooked his hands under her hips, lifting her, rearranging her until she was on her knees, her face pressed into the pillow that smelled of them. He looked his fill: the elegant line of her spine, the delicate wings of her shoulder blades, the perfect, pale curves of her ass. He ran a possessive hand over one cheek, then spread her open with his thumbs. She was flushed, glistening, utterly exposed to him.
He positioned himself, the broad head of his cock nudging against her soaked entrance. He pushed in, not with the frantic need of the night before, but with a deliberate, overwhelming pressure that made her cry out, the sound muffled by the pillow. He sank to the hilt in one smooth, relentless stroke, burying himself until their bodies met.
“Fuck,” he breathed, pausing, letting them both feel the absolute fullness. Then he began to move.
These were different strokes. Deeper. Slower. More profound. Each withdrawal was almost complete, a sweet agony of emptiness before he drove back in, a claiming that resonated in his bones. He set a rhythm that was less about frenzy and more about possession, a physical branding. He watched himself disappear into her, the sight so obscenely beautiful it hurt.
His hands slid up her back, grasping her shoulders, using them for leverage. The pace increased. The soft, wet sounds of their coupling filled the sunlit room, a vulgar counterpoint to the chirping of sparrows outside. He leaned forward, covering her body with his, one hand fisting in her short, dark hair. He tugged, just enough to pull her head back, to arch her spine.
“Look,” he growled, his breath hot against her cheek. “Look at the window. See the daylight? See how fucking normal the world is? And you’re here, with my cock buried inside you. This is real. I’m real.”
She was sobbing now, little broken gasps with every thrust. Not from pain. He could feel the frantic, welcoming clench of her orgasm building, tightening around him like a vise. “Satoru… I can’t…”
“You can. Come for me. Come on my cock. Let go.”
He released her hair and his hand snaked between her legs, finding her clit again. He pressed hard, rubbing in tight circles in time with his pounding thrusts. It was too much. Her control shattered.
Her climax ripped through her with a force that stole her voice. Her body seized, a silent, screaming arc of tension before she collapsed, trembling violently, a long, ragged moan finally tearing free. The convulsions of her inner muscles milked him, pulled the release from him with irresistible force.
He fucked her through it, his own rhythm devolving into frantic, shallow plunges. “Mine,” he chanted, a hoarse, desperate litany. “Always mine. Say it. Megumi, say it.”
Through her aftershocks, her voice was a shattered whisper. “Yours.”
It was the permission he needed. With a final, brutal drive, he buried himself as deep as he could go and came. Hot pulses erupted inside her, a claiming so deep it felt biological, essential. He groaned, a sound of utter surrender, collapsing over her, his weight pinning her to the bed, keeping them joined.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. The smell of sex and sweat was thick in the air, cutting through the floral scent of the room. Slowly, softly, he withdrew. He rolled onto his back, pulling her with him, arranging her limp body against his side. Her head rested on his chest, her fingers splayed over his pounding heart.
Sunlight strengthened, painting bands of gold across the tatami mats. The cherry blossom vase cast a delicate, forlorn shadow. The military precision of the bed was a distant memory; the sheets were tangled, damp, ruined.
Her voice, when it came, was small. “What have we done?”
His hand, which had been stroking her arm, stilled. He looked at the ceiling. “What we always wanted to.”
“It’s wrong.”
“I don’t care.” He said it simply, a stone dropped into a still pond.
She was silent. Then, “I’m supposed to protect you.”
“You did.” He turned his head, his blue eyes finding her green ones. The obsession was there, but it was calm now, a deep, still ocean. “You gave me a childhood. Let me give you this.”
“This can’t be… a thing. This was a mistake. A beautiful, terrible mistake.” But even as she said it, she curled closer into him, her leg sliding over his.
He didn’t argue. He knew the chasm between them—years, duty, a debt that could never be repaid. He also knew the truth he felt in the clench of her body around his, in the way her fingers now traced idle patterns on his skin. The war inside her mirrored the one in him.
He slid down the bed, pulling the ruined sheet over them. He kissed her forehead, a gesture startling in its tenderness after the raw carnality of minutes before.
“Sleep,” he said. “The world can wait.”
And for a while, in the sanctuary of her wrecked bed, with the scent of their joining clinging to them, it did.