Chapter 5: Steam and Silence
The silence in the room after the crash above was total and suffocating. Tenten could hear the frantic hammer of her own heart against her ribs. Her skin felt too tight, hypersensitive where his hand had been.
“I’m going to go shower,” she said, the words stuttering out like a misfired mechanism. She didn’t wait for a reply. She snatched her toiletry kit from her pack and fled into the tiny, dank bathroom, sliding the door shut with a definitive thwack.
She leaned back against it, the cool, rough wood a relief against her feverish skin. She pressed her forehead to the door and breathed deeply, the air thick with the smell of mildew and cheap soap.
Idiot. You absolute idiot.
She yelled at herself internally, a silent, furious tirade. She’d cataloged the scar on his lip. She’d memorized the weight of his hand. She’d felt a flush that had nothing to do with anger. He was a pest. A deliberately obnoxious, arrogant prick from a village of sand and arrogance.
And pretty handsome without the face paint.
She smacked her own forehead with the heel of her palm, a sharp, punishing crack. “Idiot,” she whispered aloud, the word swallowed by the humid air.
The shower was a dribble of barely-warm water from a corroded nozzle, but she stood under it until her fingers pruned. The white noise of the spray was a blessing. In the hissing water, she heard no whispers. No metallic songs. Just the hammering of water on tile and the frantic, slowing rhythm of her own pulse. The heat unknotted the tension in her shoulders, washed the dust of the road from her skin. By the time she turned the water off, her mind was clinical, clear, compartmentalized. It had been a moment of stress. Proximity. It meant nothing.
She stepped out, reaching for the thin, scratchy towel on the hook. She dried herself with efficient, familiar motions. She swore, vividly and with feeling, as she realized she’d left the new clothing scroll on the bed. Her own gear was sealed away with Ino. She was trapped in this bathroom with nothing but the towel.
Her hair, a heavy, dark cascade, dripped down her back. The instinct to twist it up, to secure it out of the way with a pin that could also be a weapon, was muscle memory. She stopped. The mission required it down. It was just hair. Letting it fall loose was a tactical choice, not a surrender. She combed her fingers through it, leaving it to fall in chocolate-brown waves that reached just above the curve of her ass.
She wrapped the towel around herself, tucking the end firmly above her breasts. It was small, leaving too much thigh exposed. She stared at her reflection in the foggy, cracked mirror—a flushed woman with wide, uncertain eyes. Annoyance straightened her spine. This was her room too. She would not skulk.
She slid the door open and stepped out with a confidence she did not feel.
Kankuro was sitting on the edge of the bed, fidgeting with a loose thread on the quilt. The shower had felt like an eternity. Every drop of water he’d heard hitting the tiles had painted an image in his mind—water sliding over the line of her shoulder, the dip of her spine. He’d been trying to be patient, dissecting a faulty elbow joint in his mind to keep from thinking about the exact shade of her skin.
The door opened. Steam billowed out into the cooler room.
He looked up, a casual “took you long enough” already forming on his tongue.
The words died.
He stared. The air left his lungs in a soundless rush.
Her hair. It was down. It was down, a waterfall of dark, damp silk that made her look younger, softer, completely unlike the tightly-controlled kunoichi he knew. The towel was laughably small, hugging the swell of her breasts, leaving the long, toned length of her legs bare. Droplets of water gleamed on her collarbone, tracing paths he desperately wanted to follow with his tongue. She looked fierce and vulnerable and so fucking beautiful it felt like a sucker punch to his gut.
“What?” Tenten asked, her voice nervously sharp. She crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive gesture that only pulled the towel tighter.
“Your hair,” he managed, his own voice a rough scrape. “It’s down.”
It was the dumbest possible thing to say. He stood up too quickly, the blood rushing south with a dizzying urgency. He couldn’t be here. Not with her looking like that, smelling of steam and clean skin. He fumbled for the clothing scroll on the bed, unsealing it with a jerk of chakra. He grabbed the first thing his hand touched—dark grey sweatpants.
“I’m showering,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes. He brushed past her, the heat of her body a brand in the cool air, and shut the bathroom door behind him with a firm click.
He didn’t turn the light on. He stood in the dark, breathing hard, his back against the door. The room still held her warmth, her scent—a clean, feminine smell layered over the steam.Holy shit.
His cock was already hard, straining against his pants. A low growl vibrated in his throat. He pictured her in the towel, the way a bead of water had shimmied down from her temple, tracing her jawline. He saw the defiant set of her mouth, the mouth that argued with him about everything, and wondered, with a clarity that was pure agony, how it would feel wrapped around him.
He tore his clothes off, letting them fall in a heap. He wrenched the shower handle. A blast of icy water hit him. He gasped, but it was no use. The image was seared behind his eyelids. Her hips in that towel. The way she’d held his hand, her calluses catching on his skin.
With a snarl of frustration, he gave up. He leaned a forearm against the slick tile, his head bowed. His other hand wrapped around his erection, his grip tight. A hiss escaped his lips. It felt too good, too urgent. He stroked himself, a rough, punishing rhythm.
He imagined peeling that towel away. Not gently. He’d yank it loose and let it fall, and he’d watch her eyes go wide, not with fear but with the same furious want he felt boiling under his own skin. He pictured pushing her back against the wall, hiking one of those incredible legs around his hip. He’d be too desperate to be gentle. He’d drive into her in one hard thrust, feeling her tight, wet heat sheath him completely. He’d make her take every inch.
“Fuck,” he breathed, his strokes accelerating. He imagined that argumentative mouth, red and furious, gasping around his cock. He’d fist his hand in that wet hair and hold her there, making her take him deep, feeling the tight clasp of her throat. He’d tell her how good she was, how perfectly her mouth was made for this, and she’d glare up at him even as she sucked him deeper.
His breaths came in ragged pants, echoing in the tiny stall. He thought of her underneath him on that narrow bed, her back arching, her nails scoring his back. He’d pin her wrists, silencing her protests with his mouth. He’d fuck her hard and fast and deep, each thrust jolting a gasp or a curse from her lips. He’d feel her inner muscles fluttering, clutching at him like a wet, greedy fist, milking him toward his end.
“Tenten,” he grunted, the name a confession and a curse.
The climax ripped through him, violent and untempered. His body convulsed, his release hitting the shower wall in hot, white stripes. Pleasure, sharp and almost painful, coursed through his veins. His knees buckled. In the aftermath, his forehead thumped against the shower door with a dull clang.
He stayed there, panting, spent, the cold water finally registering as it sluiced over his overheated skin.
Shame followed, cold and quick. What the hell was he doing? They had a mission. A cover to maintain. She thought he was an idiot. And he was, jerking off in a shower thinking about her like some horny genin.
He finished washing with mechanical, abrasive motions, scrubbing his skin as if he could scour the fantasy away. He dressed in the sweatpants and a plain black tee, avoiding his reflection. He didn’t reapply his markings. The face in the mirror was someone he barely recognized—stripped bare, tired, and hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.
The face in the mirror was someone he barely recognized—stripped bare, tired, and hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food. He rubbed the spot on his forehead where he’d thumped the shower door and groaned softly. He needed to get out of this humid box.
He opened the bathroom door, a new wave of steam escaping past him. The sight that greeted him was not the poised, irritated kunoichi he’d left.
Tenten was standing by the bed, holding up the contents of the clothing scroll with two fingers as if it were a dead rodent. “That fucking blonde bitch,” she seethed, her voice vibrating with pure, unadulterated rage. “I am going to cut off all her hair. Every single strand.”
The scroll had disgorged a pile of fabric across the thin quilt. Dresses. Nothing but dresses. Flimsy, delicate things in shades of cream, pale blue, and blush pink. There were nightgowns, lacy and insubstantial, and something sheer and satiny that might have been a negligee. This was Ino’s idea of “classy, high-end” civilian wear.
“For fuck’s sake,” Tenten hissed, dropping a slip of satin like it had burned her. She grabbed a pale blue dress with a cream lace trim, and a matching pair of panties so small they looked like a thought. “I look like a freaking… porcelin doll reject.”
In that moment, she turned, and he saw her fully. The bathroom door was open. Kankuro stood frozen in the frame.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice still rough from the shower, his own thoughts a guilty tangle.
He went very still. “Oh.”
She was wearing the dress. The pale blue fabric clung to the damp lines of her body, the lace trim tracing the neckline just above the swell of her breasts. The hem hit mid-thigh, showcasing legs he now knew were just as strong and sleek as he’d imagined. The matching panties were a fleeting shadow beneath the thin material. Her hair was a dark, wild cloud around her shoulders. She looked nothing like a weapon. She looked like a revelation he was utterly unprepared for.
Tenten flinched, crossing her arms over her chest. “Yes, I know. It’s horrible. I look like a freak in this. I’m gonna cut her, I swear to god.”
Kankuro’s brain had short-circuited. His mouth moved before his higher functions could engage. “I can’t believe,” he stated, the words blunt with awe, “that underneath all that shinobi gear, this woman has been hiding.”
He gestured vaguely at her, at the dress, at the entire devastating picture. Tenten’s flush deepened from anger to something else, her eyes wide. He cleared his throat, violently wrenching his gaze to the floor. “We should go to bed.”
The single futon was a taunt. They approached it like a minefield, each claiming a far edge. The thin mattress bowed in the middle, inevitably pulling their bodies toward the center. They lay on their backs, stiff as boards, a canyon of tense space between them. The rustle of the cheap satin against her skin was the loudest sound in the room.
After five agonizing minutes, Tenten groaned, a sound of pure frustration that came from her core. “We can’t keep doing this. We have to learn to be close. We have to… practice. Cuddling.”
The word hung in the dark, ridiculous and necessary.
He was silent for a long moment. He could still feel the phantom grip of his own hand, the illicit image of her in the steam. “Okay,” he whispered, the word nearly swallowed by the darkness.
He moved slowly, giving her every chance to bolt. He knew she was scared of intimacy, of letting anyone past the walls she’d built from childhood. He was scared too, raw from his own betrayal in the shower, terrified she’d feel the hammering of his heart and know.
He turned onto his side, facing her back. Gently, he curled his body around hers. His arm came over her waist, his hand settling flat against her stomach, just above the lace hem. He pulled her backside into the cradle of his hips.
She inhaled, sharp and sudden. Then, astonishingly, her entire body melted. She released a shuddering breath, her spine softening against his chest, her head tilting back just enough to rest near his shoulder. The fight left her in a tangible wave.
Her hair smelled like the inn’s cheap shampoo and something indefinably, essentially her. His nose brushed the damp strands. His body reacted instantly, traitorously, to the perfect fit of her curves against him. He willed himself to stillness.
He felt the faint, almost imperceptible vibration through his palm on her stomach. It was the same hum he’d heard from his puppet scroll, but this was coming from her. From the mole on her wrist, which now rested just beside his hand.
“Goodnight, Tenten,” he whispered into her ear, his voice gravelly with the effort of control.
She was quiet for so long he thought she’d fallen asleep. Warmth seeped through the thin fabrics between them, a dangerous, comforting heat. “Goodnight, Puppet Boy,” she murmured, the old nickname stripped of all its bite, sounding almost fond.
Her breathing deepened, slowed. His own followed, against his will. The choir of whispers from their sealed weapons—the kunai in her pack, his puppets by the door—faded into a distant, dissonant lullaby only she could truly hear. In the quiet dark, wrapped around each other in practiced deception, they both drifted into the deepest, most dangerous sleep of their lives.