Update: The Stuff of Children's Rhymes
Fandom: Naruto
Title: The Stuff of Children's Rhymes
Chapter: five six pick up sticks, or part III/V
Characters/Pairings: Kakashi, Sakura, mentions of a number of others; Kakashi/Sakura
Genre: Romance, Drama
Word Count: 2,961
Rating: M/R
Notes: Sorry this has taken so long (and that it's late). This chapter didn't want to cooperate with me much, but I've gotten it now, and I'm pretty happy with it, despite the changes it's made during the course of writing it. When I first planned this chapter, it was going to be pretty angsty. I figured someone (Ino) was going to be dead, and Sakura would find Kakashi at the training field, she'd start crying, he'd shut her up the only way he knew how, and it would turn into "make me forget" sex. Well, that didn't happen. So then it turned into something else, and I figured on maybe some dry-humping, but no full-on porn. Yeah, no. Ths happened:
five six pick up sticks
He should have known better than to expect anything else by now. It had happened plenty of times over the course of his life, after all. He should have been used to it. But he wasn't.
As much as he hated people making a fuss over it, Kakashi wouldn't have minded someone wishing him a happy birthday. Vaguely, he wondered why he was surprised. He did, after all, try to keep other people from finding out most of the time.
After spending much of the day in the administration building, chatting lightly with civilian receptionists and the occasional kunoichi alike, he'd finally retreated to his favorite training grounds - Field Three, where, once upon a lifetime ago, he'd trained with Minato-sensei and, later, Obito and Rin. Years after that, he'd brought Team 7 here. He smiled wistfully at the memory of a squalling orange and yellow blob dangling from one of the posts, bellowing at him.
Now was not the time to part the mist he kept firmly on Memory Lane, but he had to do something to occupy his mind or he'd just get depressed and try to drown in alcohol tonight.
Kakashi quickly ruled out meditation. He wouldn't have been able to empty his mind - he was too restless. There were no new ninjutsu he wanted to try out. It would have to be physical activity. Sparring would be best, but a partner he didn't have, and he didn't want to have to put up with anyone's chatter anyway. He could always summon a bunshin, but why would he want to fight a thing that knew his every move and could counter his every tactic?
He fell into tai chi forms, the slow, fluid movements working his body and relaxing his mind at the same time. His eyes closed and his mind followed the flow of his limbs, without wandering elsewhere.
Kakashi heard her deliberately crack a twig underfoot as she approached but he didn't open his eyes or stop the forms. There was a bit of shuffling near the middle post and then she was standing beside him.
"Mind if I join you, senpai?" Sakura asked softly. She seemed to take his silence for an affirmative because he felt her fall into his pattern effortlessly. "I didn't know you practiced tai chi," she added, still in that quiet tone. "Most shinobi don't. They don't see the point because it's not really an offensive or defensive form-"
A twinge of irritation ran through him. "Do you always talk this much when you meditate?" he asked snappishly. He felt bad almost immediately but he refused to show it. It was stupid and childish and so incredibly immature, but he couldn't help but be hurt that she hadn't remembered it was his birthday, even though she probably didn't even know it was his birthday...
The thoughts circled around his brain for a few moments until he realised Sakura had stopped moving. He opened his eyes. She was looking at him, wearing an expression that was both reproachful and sad.
"No," Sakura answered slowly. "I came to spend time with you and wish you a happy birthday because everyone else forgot. I even brought you a present." She started toward her belongings near the post. Rummaging through it, she pulled out a small, brightly colored object and set it on top of the post.
Then she slung the bag over her shoulder, said with forced cheer, "Happy birthday," and began walking toward the gate. She hadn't seemed angry at all - just disappointed and maybe hurt.
Utterly dumbfounded, Kakashi stared at the cheery yellow-and-orange box for a long moment. Then, as if in a trance, he pulled himself out of his stance and moved to the post. It was like he was watching someone else's hand reach for the gift, or like someone else was in control of his arm. He felt numb - disconnected - but he couldn't have said why.
When he brushed against it, all sensation flooded back: the paper, cool and smooth beneath his fingertips, birds chirping, squirrels chattering, the breeze light against his uncovered skin. The world snapped into focus and before he knew where he was going, he was there.
Sakura's expression was startled. She took a hasty, stumbling step backward to avoid walking into him. Her gaze flicked briefly from his face to the unopened package he was grasping in his hand.
"Sakura," he breathed, reaching out to cup her cheek gently. Her hand rose to cover his as her head tilted to regard him with her liquid green eyes. Her fingers were warm against his bare skin, her palm warm through his glove.
"You're supposed to open it," she whispered.
"I know."
But he was afraid to. He was afraid of this moment, he realised. It was all wrong for the relationship he had with this woman. It was...tender, intimate.
Like they were in love.
And as much as the moment - the gentleness of his hand on her cheek, the tenderness of hers on top of his, the softness he could see in Sakura's face - frightened him, breaking it scared him more. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
Then Sakura's focus slid past his covered face to behind him and he finally noticed how close they were to the gate. People were walking past on the street outside, though none seemed to have noticed this exchange. Her grip slid down to his wrist and she lowered his hand back down to the box she was lifting with his other wrist.
"Open it," she said softly, putting his hand on the gift and retreating another half-step to give him space.
The charged moment wasn't broken, exactly, but put on a sort of hold. Confusion still fluttered around in his brain, questions floating on the tip of his tongue, but they could wait.
Carefully, he slit the tape on one end of the box, then on the other end, one by one until all the paper was free and still completely whole. He lifted it away and folded it carefully before putting it in his hip pouch.
Sakura watched him closely.
He held an oak box, lacquered clear. Other than on the top, where the craftsman had carved 'Love,' the box was undecorated. When he lifted away the lid, he found something that knocked the breath right out of his lungs.
It was full of photos. Some of them were so old they were black and white turning into sepia, some of the color ones were faded, and some were brand new - he'd never seen them before.
The oldest one was of his parents, standing outside a small, tidy house that he vaguely recognised as the one his father had pointed out to him as a child as belonging to his maternal grandparents. They were teenagers, fifteen or sixteen at most, holding hands through the distance between their bodies. They both looked nervous and excited. On the back of the photo, someone had written the date and 'Sakumo and Aya, about to embark upon their first outing.'
"I got most of them from Tsunade-shishou, but your other friends gave me some, too," Sakura murmured.
His hands shook as he replaced the picture, grabbed up the thick stack underneath and shuffled through them rapidly.
A snapshot of his parents at a table in a greasy diner, smiling goofily at each other. A professional portrait of his parents in their wedding clothes. Jiraiya dancing with his mother at the reception. Tsunade dancing with his father. His parents dancing together, staring at each other tenderly.
His mother with a slight baby bump. An ultrasound. His father, arms wrapped around his mother but unable to close around her completely due to the fact that she was hugely pregnant. His mother, exhausted, in a hospital bed, with his shell-shocked-looking father in a chair beside her and holding a blue bundle.
A series of photos of him as an ugly, squishy infant, by himself or being held by others. The squishy, ugly infant turning into a toddler, smiling, laughing, hugging, or kissing his mother or father. Him as a small child, standing outside the Academy.
Then there was a very distinctive time-skip - where before he'd been a child, open-faced, happy, and mask-less, now he was a teenager, wary, masked and closed-off. There were several snapshots of Minato-sensei, Obito, and Rin, together or apart. Some of those photos included him, but not all. He saw a photo of Minato-sensei with his arms around a heavily pregnant Kushina's shoulders, his face buried in her long red hair.
After those were pictures of Genma, Shizune, Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Raidou, and everyone else he'd ever called so much as 'acquaintance,' in a variety of settings - streets, homes, restaurants, bars, woods, rocky hills, deserts, rainforests. In some, some of the people were obviously coupled up and romantic. These shots spanned years, covering his entire young adult life.
Photos of his students, when they'd been his students, of them growing up - though Sasuke was absent in most of them - all the way up to recent days, like the ones of the trip he'd been conned into to Shinju's dance club last week, and from a few days ago when Asuma and Kurenai's daughter had climbed into his lap and fallen asleep there.
Kakashi replaced the pictures in the box and put the lid on it quickly. He looked up to see Sakura was still watching, though her expression was now blank. He was still lost for words.
"Do you like it?" Sakura asked. There was no inflection in her tone, but Kakashi knew she was only trying to hide her uncertainty at his reaction.
It was a box full of memories, of people who had cared about him, and as hard as she'd tried to make all of them good ones, they still brought a bittersweetness to his thoughts. Even so, this was perhaps the most thoughtful, touching gift anyone had ever given him.
"Yes, Sakura," he said, voice low. "Yes. I like it very much."
She smiled slowly, and Kakashi found himself smiling back and shuffling his feet awkwardly. He kept his eyes locked on hers as he lifted a hand to her cheek.
Her smiled turned strained and her eyes darkened with confusion. Unconsciously, he leaned forward.
"Kakashi," Sakura whispered.
"Mm?" he hummed, not really paying attention. He intended to thank her for her thoughtful gift, and his memory was full of her, of every encounter he'd ever had with her since the night in the alley when she was seventeen and drunk.
The lust had been powerful then, just as it was now, but now there was something else there too.
"Kakashi," she said again, looking torn as she pressed herself into his touch. "What are we? What...what is this?"
He ripped his mask down. "I don't know," he mumbled, swooping in to touch his mouth to hers with just enough pressure to feel hers give. He'd kissed her before, countless times in countless ways all over her body - but this time was different.
There was lust and wild passion now, as ever, and there had always been some measure of tenderness, because Sakura was important to him and he'd never wanted to hurt her. But this tenderness was something altogether different. This tenderness was a gentleness welling in his chest, making him want to worship her, to revel in her as he never had before.
He was terrified as he broke apart the first time to take in air. Sakura kept her eyes closed, but her mouth trembled. It was a sure sign of her uncertainty.
"Sakura," he breathed, reaching out to pull her closer, pull her into his chest and hold her in his arms as he slowly kissed her again. Kakashi's hands tightened on her hips and he pushed his gently against her.
"Not-" she gasped against his lips. "Not here. We're in full view of the street."
Trying not to stop touching her as he slid his palm to her hand, he drew away, gently but insistently taking her with him as he retreated further into the wooded area of the training grounds. Once they were sufficiently covered, Kakashi wasted no time in returning her to his embrace.
He was content just to touch her, to feel her in his arms, and that contentedness confused him. Neither of them had ever mentioned exclusivity - he'd simply assumed she was as fine with their friends-with-benefits arrangement as he was. They never talked about what they were to each other, in fact.
Thought left him when she broke away from his mouth to kiss down his chin and throat in a way that had never, ever failed to make him shiver. But just as he was, she seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever, in spite of the relative lack of privacy in their little wooded hiding spot, as she toyed with the hem of his shirt for a moment. Kakashi tipped her chin back up to taste her lips again, and for a long time, they just stood there kissing, slow and soft and tender, and stroking each other's bodies gently.
When Kakashi finally unzipped her shirt, he kissed every inch of skin exposed as he removed it from her shoulders - then her arms, her wrists, her hands, her fingers. He stroked her soft back and touched his mouth to her breasts as he bared them.
For all the heat boiling in his blood, he didn't want to rush. His body was all but demanding he get her naked already, but his brain refused to comply with this sense of urgency. He was glad for that. Things were changing, and it bewildered him in the best way.
At the back of his mind, he knew they'd have to talk after this, but Sakura was removing his shirt and undershirt and he was dipping his hands under shorts and panties and silly things like talking ceased to matter. They slid off her legs and she stepped delicately out of them.
He stopped a moment to admire the sight Sakura's nude body presented. She was glorious, beautiful, and he smiled until his gaze returned to her face and he saw the uncertainty there.
He pulled her against him again, nuzzling her hair as he directed them down to the ground. Kneeling over Sakura meant Kakashi got to see every bit of her - including how her face contorted into pain.
"Ow," she muttered, wiggling, and shoved a hand under her back. She rummaged for a second, arching her body against his, and came up with a short, gnarled stick. She tossed it aside with a chuckle.
He returned to her; she slid her arms around his back, splaying her hands there, and Kakashi settled himself between her thighs. He felt her fingers trail down until they snagged on the top of his pants.
He lightly ground his erection against her naked, sensitive center, which made the scent of her arousal flare and her hips roll in an open invitation. Between the two of them, his pants were short work.
It was the space of a breath before his bare tip was pushing inside her. It was slow, as everything since he'd first kissed her had been, and he thrust shallowly into her, going deeper in degrees. Sakura shifted restlessly beneath him, but did not cry out or ask for more.
When Kakashi was finally as far inside her as he could go, he just stilled, enjoying her hot, wet tightness. They were both trembling, covered in sweat, and panting.
"Move," Sakura whimpered a few moments later, rocking her hips. Kakashi started a leisurely rhythm, stroking his length deeply inside.
He kept his eyes open, watching Sakura's expressions carefully, almost greedily, in a way he never had before. The way her eyes squeezed shut and her lips pursed as he pushed against her - how her mouth rounded as he rolled his hips a certain way - entranced him.
He didn't kiss her, instead letting her sounds wash over him - her gaspy little breaths, almost of protest, as he withdrew each time; her sharper, higher-pitched whines of encouragement as he began to surge against her with more force - and they all spiraled his desire higher.
He whispered to her, between his own broken-off groans and desperate pants, nonsensical phrases about how beautiful he was and how he didn't want to stop touching her, and between "I love how soft your skin is" and "The scent of your shampoo drives me crazy," she came with a wild cry. Her walls clamping around him broke his rhythm after only another handful of thrusts he was losing himself, buried within her, a strangled groan tearing from his chest.
He nearly collapsed on top her, boneless after his orgasm. Sakura chuckled weakly, nosing his chest as he nosed her ear. "That was...different," she mumbled.
He remained silent, turning over a thought in his head. For her part, Sakura remained silent below him. They remained that way for a long time, connected but unmoving and silent.
At long last, Kakashi sighed, reaching a decision, and eased out of her. Before he sat up to grab for his pants, he kissed her, lingering and tender.
"Would you like to have dinner at my place?" he asked simply, as the kiss broke.
Surprise flashed across her face for a split second before she smiled. "Sure," she said.
He offered his hand to help her up and they dressed slowly, almost reluctantly. As they began to leave the training field, he took her hand again.
She held it all the way to his apartment.
FF.net
Title: The Stuff of Children's Rhymes
Chapter: five six pick up sticks, or part III/V
Characters/Pairings: Kakashi, Sakura, mentions of a number of others; Kakashi/Sakura
Genre: Romance, Drama
Word Count: 2,961
Rating: M/R
Notes: Sorry this has taken so long (and that it's late). This chapter didn't want to cooperate with me much, but I've gotten it now, and I'm pretty happy with it, despite the changes it's made during the course of writing it. When I first planned this chapter, it was going to be pretty angsty. I figured someone (Ino) was going to be dead, and Sakura would find Kakashi at the training field, she'd start crying, he'd shut her up the only way he knew how, and it would turn into "make me forget" sex. Well, that didn't happen. So then it turned into something else, and I figured on maybe some dry-humping, but no full-on porn. Yeah, no. Ths happened:
five six pick up sticks
He should have known better than to expect anything else by now. It had happened plenty of times over the course of his life, after all. He should have been used to it. But he wasn't.
As much as he hated people making a fuss over it, Kakashi wouldn't have minded someone wishing him a happy birthday. Vaguely, he wondered why he was surprised. He did, after all, try to keep other people from finding out most of the time.
After spending much of the day in the administration building, chatting lightly with civilian receptionists and the occasional kunoichi alike, he'd finally retreated to his favorite training grounds - Field Three, where, once upon a lifetime ago, he'd trained with Minato-sensei and, later, Obito and Rin. Years after that, he'd brought Team 7 here. He smiled wistfully at the memory of a squalling orange and yellow blob dangling from one of the posts, bellowing at him.
Now was not the time to part the mist he kept firmly on Memory Lane, but he had to do something to occupy his mind or he'd just get depressed and try to drown in alcohol tonight.
Kakashi quickly ruled out meditation. He wouldn't have been able to empty his mind - he was too restless. There were no new ninjutsu he wanted to try out. It would have to be physical activity. Sparring would be best, but a partner he didn't have, and he didn't want to have to put up with anyone's chatter anyway. He could always summon a bunshin, but why would he want to fight a thing that knew his every move and could counter his every tactic?
He fell into tai chi forms, the slow, fluid movements working his body and relaxing his mind at the same time. His eyes closed and his mind followed the flow of his limbs, without wandering elsewhere.
Kakashi heard her deliberately crack a twig underfoot as she approached but he didn't open his eyes or stop the forms. There was a bit of shuffling near the middle post and then she was standing beside him.
"Mind if I join you, senpai?" Sakura asked softly. She seemed to take his silence for an affirmative because he felt her fall into his pattern effortlessly. "I didn't know you practiced tai chi," she added, still in that quiet tone. "Most shinobi don't. They don't see the point because it's not really an offensive or defensive form-"
A twinge of irritation ran through him. "Do you always talk this much when you meditate?" he asked snappishly. He felt bad almost immediately but he refused to show it. It was stupid and childish and so incredibly immature, but he couldn't help but be hurt that she hadn't remembered it was his birthday, even though she probably didn't even know it was his birthday...
The thoughts circled around his brain for a few moments until he realised Sakura had stopped moving. He opened his eyes. She was looking at him, wearing an expression that was both reproachful and sad.
"No," Sakura answered slowly. "I came to spend time with you and wish you a happy birthday because everyone else forgot. I even brought you a present." She started toward her belongings near the post. Rummaging through it, she pulled out a small, brightly colored object and set it on top of the post.
Then she slung the bag over her shoulder, said with forced cheer, "Happy birthday," and began walking toward the gate. She hadn't seemed angry at all - just disappointed and maybe hurt.
Utterly dumbfounded, Kakashi stared at the cheery yellow-and-orange box for a long moment. Then, as if in a trance, he pulled himself out of his stance and moved to the post. It was like he was watching someone else's hand reach for the gift, or like someone else was in control of his arm. He felt numb - disconnected - but he couldn't have said why.
When he brushed against it, all sensation flooded back: the paper, cool and smooth beneath his fingertips, birds chirping, squirrels chattering, the breeze light against his uncovered skin. The world snapped into focus and before he knew where he was going, he was there.
Sakura's expression was startled. She took a hasty, stumbling step backward to avoid walking into him. Her gaze flicked briefly from his face to the unopened package he was grasping in his hand.
"Sakura," he breathed, reaching out to cup her cheek gently. Her hand rose to cover his as her head tilted to regard him with her liquid green eyes. Her fingers were warm against his bare skin, her palm warm through his glove.
"You're supposed to open it," she whispered.
"I know."
But he was afraid to. He was afraid of this moment, he realised. It was all wrong for the relationship he had with this woman. It was...tender, intimate.
Like they were in love.
And as much as the moment - the gentleness of his hand on her cheek, the tenderness of hers on top of his, the softness he could see in Sakura's face - frightened him, breaking it scared him more. He wasn't sure what to make of that.
Then Sakura's focus slid past his covered face to behind him and he finally noticed how close they were to the gate. People were walking past on the street outside, though none seemed to have noticed this exchange. Her grip slid down to his wrist and she lowered his hand back down to the box she was lifting with his other wrist.
"Open it," she said softly, putting his hand on the gift and retreating another half-step to give him space.
The charged moment wasn't broken, exactly, but put on a sort of hold. Confusion still fluttered around in his brain, questions floating on the tip of his tongue, but they could wait.
Carefully, he slit the tape on one end of the box, then on the other end, one by one until all the paper was free and still completely whole. He lifted it away and folded it carefully before putting it in his hip pouch.
Sakura watched him closely.
He held an oak box, lacquered clear. Other than on the top, where the craftsman had carved 'Love,' the box was undecorated. When he lifted away the lid, he found something that knocked the breath right out of his lungs.
It was full of photos. Some of them were so old they were black and white turning into sepia, some of the color ones were faded, and some were brand new - he'd never seen them before.
The oldest one was of his parents, standing outside a small, tidy house that he vaguely recognised as the one his father had pointed out to him as a child as belonging to his maternal grandparents. They were teenagers, fifteen or sixteen at most, holding hands through the distance between their bodies. They both looked nervous and excited. On the back of the photo, someone had written the date and 'Sakumo and Aya, about to embark upon their first outing.'
"I got most of them from Tsunade-shishou, but your other friends gave me some, too," Sakura murmured.
His hands shook as he replaced the picture, grabbed up the thick stack underneath and shuffled through them rapidly.
A snapshot of his parents at a table in a greasy diner, smiling goofily at each other. A professional portrait of his parents in their wedding clothes. Jiraiya dancing with his mother at the reception. Tsunade dancing with his father. His parents dancing together, staring at each other tenderly.
His mother with a slight baby bump. An ultrasound. His father, arms wrapped around his mother but unable to close around her completely due to the fact that she was hugely pregnant. His mother, exhausted, in a hospital bed, with his shell-shocked-looking father in a chair beside her and holding a blue bundle.
A series of photos of him as an ugly, squishy infant, by himself or being held by others. The squishy, ugly infant turning into a toddler, smiling, laughing, hugging, or kissing his mother or father. Him as a small child, standing outside the Academy.
Then there was a very distinctive time-skip - where before he'd been a child, open-faced, happy, and mask-less, now he was a teenager, wary, masked and closed-off. There were several snapshots of Minato-sensei, Obito, and Rin, together or apart. Some of those photos included him, but not all. He saw a photo of Minato-sensei with his arms around a heavily pregnant Kushina's shoulders, his face buried in her long red hair.
After those were pictures of Genma, Shizune, Asuma, Kurenai, Gai, Raidou, and everyone else he'd ever called so much as 'acquaintance,' in a variety of settings - streets, homes, restaurants, bars, woods, rocky hills, deserts, rainforests. In some, some of the people were obviously coupled up and romantic. These shots spanned years, covering his entire young adult life.
Photos of his students, when they'd been his students, of them growing up - though Sasuke was absent in most of them - all the way up to recent days, like the ones of the trip he'd been conned into to Shinju's dance club last week, and from a few days ago when Asuma and Kurenai's daughter had climbed into his lap and fallen asleep there.
Kakashi replaced the pictures in the box and put the lid on it quickly. He looked up to see Sakura was still watching, though her expression was now blank. He was still lost for words.
"Do you like it?" Sakura asked. There was no inflection in her tone, but Kakashi knew she was only trying to hide her uncertainty at his reaction.
It was a box full of memories, of people who had cared about him, and as hard as she'd tried to make all of them good ones, they still brought a bittersweetness to his thoughts. Even so, this was perhaps the most thoughtful, touching gift anyone had ever given him.
"Yes, Sakura," he said, voice low. "Yes. I like it very much."
She smiled slowly, and Kakashi found himself smiling back and shuffling his feet awkwardly. He kept his eyes locked on hers as he lifted a hand to her cheek.
Her smiled turned strained and her eyes darkened with confusion. Unconsciously, he leaned forward.
"Kakashi," Sakura whispered.
"Mm?" he hummed, not really paying attention. He intended to thank her for her thoughtful gift, and his memory was full of her, of every encounter he'd ever had with her since the night in the alley when she was seventeen and drunk.
The lust had been powerful then, just as it was now, but now there was something else there too.
"Kakashi," she said again, looking torn as she pressed herself into his touch. "What are we? What...what is this?"
He ripped his mask down. "I don't know," he mumbled, swooping in to touch his mouth to hers with just enough pressure to feel hers give. He'd kissed her before, countless times in countless ways all over her body - but this time was different.
There was lust and wild passion now, as ever, and there had always been some measure of tenderness, because Sakura was important to him and he'd never wanted to hurt her. But this tenderness was something altogether different. This tenderness was a gentleness welling in his chest, making him want to worship her, to revel in her as he never had before.
He was terrified as he broke apart the first time to take in air. Sakura kept her eyes closed, but her mouth trembled. It was a sure sign of her uncertainty.
"Sakura," he breathed, reaching out to pull her closer, pull her into his chest and hold her in his arms as he slowly kissed her again. Kakashi's hands tightened on her hips and he pushed his gently against her.
"Not-" she gasped against his lips. "Not here. We're in full view of the street."
Trying not to stop touching her as he slid his palm to her hand, he drew away, gently but insistently taking her with him as he retreated further into the wooded area of the training grounds. Once they were sufficiently covered, Kakashi wasted no time in returning her to his embrace.
He was content just to touch her, to feel her in his arms, and that contentedness confused him. Neither of them had ever mentioned exclusivity - he'd simply assumed she was as fine with their friends-with-benefits arrangement as he was. They never talked about what they were to each other, in fact.
Thought left him when she broke away from his mouth to kiss down his chin and throat in a way that had never, ever failed to make him shiver. But just as he was, she seemed to be in no hurry whatsoever, in spite of the relative lack of privacy in their little wooded hiding spot, as she toyed with the hem of his shirt for a moment. Kakashi tipped her chin back up to taste her lips again, and for a long time, they just stood there kissing, slow and soft and tender, and stroking each other's bodies gently.
When Kakashi finally unzipped her shirt, he kissed every inch of skin exposed as he removed it from her shoulders - then her arms, her wrists, her hands, her fingers. He stroked her soft back and touched his mouth to her breasts as he bared them.
For all the heat boiling in his blood, he didn't want to rush. His body was all but demanding he get her naked already, but his brain refused to comply with this sense of urgency. He was glad for that. Things were changing, and it bewildered him in the best way.
At the back of his mind, he knew they'd have to talk after this, but Sakura was removing his shirt and undershirt and he was dipping his hands under shorts and panties and silly things like talking ceased to matter. They slid off her legs and she stepped delicately out of them.
He stopped a moment to admire the sight Sakura's nude body presented. She was glorious, beautiful, and he smiled until his gaze returned to her face and he saw the uncertainty there.
He pulled her against him again, nuzzling her hair as he directed them down to the ground. Kneeling over Sakura meant Kakashi got to see every bit of her - including how her face contorted into pain.
"Ow," she muttered, wiggling, and shoved a hand under her back. She rummaged for a second, arching her body against his, and came up with a short, gnarled stick. She tossed it aside with a chuckle.
He returned to her; she slid her arms around his back, splaying her hands there, and Kakashi settled himself between her thighs. He felt her fingers trail down until they snagged on the top of his pants.
He lightly ground his erection against her naked, sensitive center, which made the scent of her arousal flare and her hips roll in an open invitation. Between the two of them, his pants were short work.
It was the space of a breath before his bare tip was pushing inside her. It was slow, as everything since he'd first kissed her had been, and he thrust shallowly into her, going deeper in degrees. Sakura shifted restlessly beneath him, but did not cry out or ask for more.
When Kakashi was finally as far inside her as he could go, he just stilled, enjoying her hot, wet tightness. They were both trembling, covered in sweat, and panting.
"Move," Sakura whimpered a few moments later, rocking her hips. Kakashi started a leisurely rhythm, stroking his length deeply inside.
He kept his eyes open, watching Sakura's expressions carefully, almost greedily, in a way he never had before. The way her eyes squeezed shut and her lips pursed as he pushed against her - how her mouth rounded as he rolled his hips a certain way - entranced him.
He didn't kiss her, instead letting her sounds wash over him - her gaspy little breaths, almost of protest, as he withdrew each time; her sharper, higher-pitched whines of encouragement as he began to surge against her with more force - and they all spiraled his desire higher.
He whispered to her, between his own broken-off groans and desperate pants, nonsensical phrases about how beautiful he was and how he didn't want to stop touching her, and between "I love how soft your skin is" and "The scent of your shampoo drives me crazy," she came with a wild cry. Her walls clamping around him broke his rhythm after only another handful of thrusts he was losing himself, buried within her, a strangled groan tearing from his chest.
He nearly collapsed on top her, boneless after his orgasm. Sakura chuckled weakly, nosing his chest as he nosed her ear. "That was...different," she mumbled.
He remained silent, turning over a thought in his head. For her part, Sakura remained silent below him. They remained that way for a long time, connected but unmoving and silent.
At long last, Kakashi sighed, reaching a decision, and eased out of her. Before he sat up to grab for his pants, he kissed her, lingering and tender.
"Would you like to have dinner at my place?" he asked simply, as the kiss broke.
Surprise flashed across her face for a split second before she smiled. "Sure," she said.
He offered his hand to help her up and they dressed slowly, almost reluctantly. As they began to leave the training field, he took her hand again.
She held it all the way to his apartment.
FF.net