In the Red, chapter 4, part 2
Usual disclaimers: I don't own these characters and don't make any money for these writings; I'm just creating these stories to entertain myself and (hopefully) you.
The people in this story are fictional, and so you might see them doing things that aren't strictly safe from a sexual standpoint. You are a real person, so please be safe when you play! If you want more information about how that all works, please click here, or here...there are plenty of other sites with good info on the web, too, so check them out and be safe.
All of the people depicted (or referred to) in sexual situations in my stories are intended to be and considered to be by the author of the legal age of consent in any jurisdiction, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from. OK?
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Missed Chapter 4, part 1? Click here.
“Why doesn't he sit here,” Grimmjow replied, smiling like a shark and rising from his chair. My eyes went wide as I actually noticed him for the first time, and then I scowled as Aizen motioned me to go in that direction. I guess he got out early for good behavior, I thought. As I neared the empty chair, Grimmjow put his hand on my shoulder, as if to guide me, and bent his head to my mine. “You look good, Ichigo,” he murmured into my ear. “Good enough that I'd be willing to pull some strings to give you a goodbye fuck before you get your head blown off for real.”
Now, I have to take a moment here to admit that I'd always liked Grimm's voice. It was deep and rough and when he'd talk low into my ear like that, it used to be able to get me going in a minute. At that moment all I felt was annoyance at his fucking presumption, however. “Grimm,” I replied in a clearly audible tone, “I told you the last time I saw you that it was over between the two of us. Get your hands off of me.”
His eyes narrowed and he muttered, “You're such a little whore for cock. I'm sure you'll want one last good fuck as a send off.”
I glared at him as I sat, now remembering one of his less charming habits that I didn't miss at all. I guess some people are into it, but I find it a complete turn off to be insulted in the middle of sex. Actually, it pisses me off enough to want to fight, so now that I think about it, maybe that's why Grimm used to do it... “Yeah, I like cock,” I replied calmly, at a conversational volume. “And I don't have a problem admitting it, unlike some people,” I continued, glancing up at Grimm with what was probably a completely evil look. “Of course, once I beat you in hand-to-hand combat, it seemed to loosen your tongue. It was pretty fucking hot, really, the way you begged and moaned for it-”
“Shut up!” he hissed in return, leaning in as if he wanted to shut me up himself.
“Then get your fucking hands off me, Grimm,” I said, glaring at him and willing him to move his hand off my shoulder.
He did quickly and stepped back a little, as if he gave me enough space I'd stop talking. As for me, my gaze swept the table quickly, and I saw that some of his colleagues were giving him the most curious and interested looks. I darted a glance almost directly across the table at Renji and couldn't help my look of surprise. I don't know exactly what I'd expected after that exchange, but having Renji almost glaring at me, as if he'd somehow been cheated, wasn't it. “So, you'd top him and not me?” he asked, his voice rough.
I shuddered as everything inside me seemed to grind to a halt, and I blinked, trying to gather my racing thoughts before answering. I know it sounds ridiculous, but for the moment, I forgot why we were there, and the rest of the board room and even the world around us had disappeared and he was the only other person there. “You...I didn't know you wanted...I thought...” I trailed off and watched Renji turn his face to the side slightly.
I'd never seen him blush, and he wasn't now, but the embarrassed look on his face was probably even more expressive than that would have been. “I thought maybe you wouldn't be into it, so I didn't say anything,” he murmured, but somehow it was louder to me than if he'd shouted it.
Suddenly, I was smirking as I tried to catch his eye. “You know,” I replied, and I could hear how low and rough my own voice sounded as I spoke, “all you have to do is ask for it.”
Renji's head shot up and he looked at me with suspicion at first, but something about my lustful grin convinced him. He shot me an interesting look of his own then, all half-lidded fire, and opened his mouth to speak before he was rudely interrupted.
“Gentlemen,” Aizen’s voice sounded out, and the two of us both turned as one to glare at him. It was on the tip of my tongue to yell at him to shut up, but somehow I swallowed it at the last minute. Probably better not to irritate him so much that he decides to put a bullet in my head before the backup gets here, I thought.
“Please, gentlemen,” he continued, his smile seeming to have a little edge now, “we really do need to begin the meeting. You can finish this…charming conversation in whatever time you have afterwards.”
Fuck that, I remember thinking. I’m living through this for sure now. I stole another look at Renji, thinking about what he’d said, when I noticed the man standing by him for the first time, a gun pointed at Renji’s head. If I could have glared at myself for my denseness I would have, but instead I glared at him, memorizing his features so that I could deal with him properly later. He was fairly tall and thin with shoulder-length pink hair and designer glasses that somehow matched his expensive-looking suit. The man seemed highly irritated, however, and I figured it had at least something to do with the bruise along his jawline, a split lip, and the start of a really big black eye. I smiled to myself, enjoying the physical evidence of Renji’s struggle not to come along quietly, and resolved to ask him about it later.
I turned carefully in the direction of the first presenter of the evening as the reality of the situation seemed to sink into my mind again, and mentally reviewed my priorities, reminding myself to keep focused and not spend all my time staring at Renji. First, keep rolling. I twisted the wrist I held in my lap so that I could see the snap on the cuff of the leather jacket I wore and gave a sideways glance down. Something that looked like a little reflector winked back at me greenly, causing me to grin again. The reflector was actually an LED that was telling me that the tiny wireless cameras and condenser mics, looking like fancy studs holding the collar of my coat down, were hard at work. Yoruichi had impressed on me when she’d brought me the jacket I now wore how expensive it had been to have it made, with batteries and a powerful broadcaster sewn into the heavy lining of the coat, and promised a very high bill for my client if anything happened to it. My efforts to distract the people that I knew would be frisking me from focusing on the coat had been successful, fortunately, so I was still wearing it. Unfortunately, it seemed it had been sized for Urahara, so although it fit otherwise I couldn’t button it up, something that didn’t seem to matter in the warm conference room. Ururu had arranged that the video and audio output would be wirelessly streamed to several places so that whatever I could film wouldn’t be lost, regardless of what happened to Renji and I.
Just the idea of something happening to him made me swallow painfully, and I gave Renji a sideways look automatically, as if to assure myself he was still there. He met my gaze, his look intense, as if waiting to follow my lead. Second priority, I thought as I tried to deliver a cocky grin I wasn't quite feeling at the moment, get Renji out of here, regardless of the cost. It was my fault that he was in the room at all, involved in something that didn't touch on him in the least, and so I needed to do anything I could to be sure he could get out of there safely.
Last, I needed to get out of there myself, or at least in repairable shape. Since I'd resolved that there was no way I was going to die now, I just had to figure out a way to make all of that happen, and whatever Yoruichi had planned was the key to that. I turned to the next speaker, not really focusing on the reports about how many people had been smuggled to what locations and how much profit the company was making as a result, or how many tons of drugs had been delivered and the millions of dollars that had been made. The reports did make the nervous tension in my stomach heighten, however, because everything I heard made it clear that the people around the table had no regard for anyone or anything other than making money, and that killing the two of us wouldn't be any more difficult mentally for any of them than going to lunch. As the presentations continued, I found that I was listening and waiting for sounds outside the room, hoping that Yoruichi's plans were actually going to materialize. She'd disappeared a couple of hours before I came here, leaving Ururu and I to finalize the details of the wireless recordings. When I'd asked Yoruichi what she had in mind, she'd laughed.
“Ichigo, just trust me. We need to get enough on these guys to put them in jail for the rest of their lives, and then I'll be there at just the right time to help you two get out. I'll be monitoring you the whole time, just in case things get bad early,” she’d said, dangling a sticky ear piece in her hand. “I just want to see if I can get anyone else interested in helping out, too.”
She'd been completely closed-mouthed when I'd asked for details, just saying that she'd take care of everything herself if she was unable to get more help, so unfortunately I had little idea of what her plans were, so I waited, trying not to start at every creak the building made.
It was when the pink-haired man behind Renji began to talk about how much money the company stood to make from the illegal human experiments he was conducting that her first move occurred. When the lights went out, I was up and moving before I realized it, standing while shoving the chair I was sitting in backwards in Grimm's direction. At the same time, I'd flung the edges of the leather jacket wide and launched myself at the big polished wood table in front of me, and then I was sliding across it on my chest in Renji's direction. I was about halfway across when I saw Renji and the pink-haired man slightly in the muzzle flash of his gun.
It was suddenly dark again and I heard a choked snarl that didn't sound quite human as my heart and stomach sank into the ground. I heard shouts from others in the room to hold fire as I collided with a chair at the end of my slide. In my memory of where the pink-haired man had been standing as he shot at Renji, I grabbed for his gun arm on one side and his shoulder on the other. It felt like I was gripping his forearm on the side with the gun, so I quickly slid my hand out to his wrist, fury making my hold strong. My other hand had somehow gotten hold of my punch dagger as I'd leaped out of my chair; the idiot who'd been frisking me had been way too distracted to find it on my key ring, I guess.
“You didn't think you could shoot him and get away with it, did you?” I asked gutturally, almost unable to speak as my stomach lurched, leaning in close to the man's ear as my fist moved from his shoulder, up his neck, to the edge of his jaw as his other arm shook, obviously trying to move to get a shot off on me. As I heard him breathe in to ready himself for a reply, I pulled back a little and then gave a short punch, burying the dagger in his neck, along the edge of his jaw, the path the jugular takes. The only reply he gave was a gurgling shriek and a gunshot at the floor at the same moment all of the windows around us shattered.
Instinctively, I let go of the man to crouch in the chair I'd landed in, only to realize for the first time that it was empty. I would have started to wonder where the fuck Renji was, but the sudden sound of gunfire from every direction caught my attention instead, so I dropped to the ground, rolling under the large conference table at almost the same moment. Somehow, through the noise of the firing, I heard a grunt as I hit something. Steeling myself for an attack and realizing I no longer had anything in hand, I relaxed a split second later as I realized I'd recognized the voice. “Renji,” I said, leaning in so that he could hear me over the gunfire, “is that you?”
“Ichigo?” I heard his voice respond, a little more weakly than I was used to hearing, but just the sound filled me with such relief that before I knew it my heart seemed to have risen back out of the floor and I was gripping his arm tightly. He hissed in response, and I immediately let go.
“Fuck, I forgot! Where did that pink-haired bastard shoot you?” I moved my ear near his mouth so that I could hear his response, since the sound level in the room was nearly deafening now.
I heard something about Renji's shoulder, and that he thought he'd just gotten winged, so I couldn't help but reach out to try to investigate, more gently this time. His shoulder felt slick with blood and my stomach seemed to contract in on itself, thoughts flying through my mind about how bad his injury might be. I shook my head, trying to drive them away, and moved to act instead. Carefully, I tried to wipe my left hand clean on my jeans, knowing that I probably had some of the pink haired man's blood on it, and then threw the leather jacket off and to the side. Scrabbling with it, I pulled off my long sleeved t-shirt, thankful that I'd chosen dark colors that day.
“Try to relax,” I told Renji as I folded the bottom of the shirt about even with the width of the sleeves to form a long makeshift bandage. “This is probably going to hurt when I tie it.”
I put the part of the t-shirt with the most fabric on it over where it seemed like the most bleeding was occurring on Renji's arm, and then folded the arms of the shirt under his arm, finally tying it fairly tightly. The only thing I heard out of him was another hiss as my first knot pulled in. “Are you all right?” I asked, putting my mouth near his ear and almost whispering, since the gunfire in the room had dwindled to the infrequent shot.
“Yeah,” he said, and seemed about to say more, but the lights suddenly went back on. I looked at him, eyes wide, my finger pressed to my lips. He nodded, and I bit my lip as I studied him for a moment, a little blood on his face, his eyes weary.
Ripping my glance away, I looked nervously around, my gaze covering both open sides of the conference table we were underneath. Bodies lay to either side of us, and I leaned over to tug a gun out of someone's lifeless hand which had somehow ended up near our feet. I could hear murmured voices discussing something and coming closer. I bit my lip as I realized I was crouched protectively over Renji, but I didn't move as I somehow tried to protect him from both sides. I still wasn't sure yet who was the victor in the fight, if there was one at all, so I had to be prepared for any possibility.
I held my breath as footsteps approached from the side of the table I'd been sitting on not long before. They sounded like heavy boots, making a crunching, grinding noise as they walked over shattered window glass and ground it into the carpet. I looked Renji in the eye, hoping it wasn't the last time and trying to convey everything I'd never said about how much he meant to me, in case I'd never be able to. A pair of legs in black ripstop fabric pants and black combat boots appeared at the edge of where we could see and began to slowly walk by. I tried to calm my breathing and aim the gun, reminding myself not to fire until I'd identified who this was. Suddenly, the legs stopped and I saw Kenpachi's face appear, peering under the conference table.
“Kurosaki?” he asked. “What the hell happened to your shirt?”
“Don't ask,” I muttered as I relaxed to sit on the floor next to Renji. “I guess this means you're in control here now?”
He made a dismissive noise and looked a little depressed again. “I guess. It was sort of disappointing, really. They didn't put up that much of a fight.”
I lifted an eyebrow as I looked at him for a moment. “In that case, we're coming out,” I replied, putting the leather jacket back on and helping Renji out from under the table.
“I'm not an invalid, you know,” he grumbled at me.
“No,” I agreed. “You've just lost a lot of blood. Don't be an idiot; sit here before you fall over.”
He stumbled a little before I was able to get him into the chair I'd sat in before. Renji glared at me for a moment, but his expression softened when he had a chance to study mine. “I'll be all right, Ichigo,” he said in a low voice, and I had to bite my lip again before I said anything stupid.
I looked around, trying to get hold of the situation, and saw a few motionless bodies on the floor. “So, how many did you get?” I asked Kenpachi.
He grinned savagely in response. “Four, it looks like. Not too bad, since we only sustained a few injuries ourselves,” he finished, looking over in the corner where one of his men was bandaging the wound of another. I raised my eyebrow, but then I realized they were all wearing flak vests which probably explained the lack of fatalities.
“Was one of those bodies a pink-haired guy with a knife in his head?” I asked, craning my neck to peer over to the other side of the table but not being able to see that far.
Kenpachi laughed then, throwing his head back. “I thought that knife looked familiar! I'm glad to see you're such a dangerous man, Kurosaki. When are we sparring again?”
Never, if I can help it, was my first thought, but I smiled instead. “Maybe you should try my teacher. She says I'm the only decent opponent she has these days, but I really think she's just being kind. She seems to be well beyond my level now.”
Yoruichi took that moment to enter the room. She was wearing a completely form-fitting black bodysuit and anything she'd wanted to carry with her seemed to be strung from a belt at her waist. Kenpachi turned to watch her with all the hunger of someone who hadn't eaten in weeks being shown his favorite dish. “That sounds good,” he said, and I realized he was replying to me even though he wasn't looking in my direction. “I've always liked strong women.”
Grinning, and obviously enjoying the attention, Yoruichi came up to Renji and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I'm Shihoin Yoruichi. Ichigo and I have been friends since he was a kid, so I'm a little disappointed he hasn't come by to introduce you to us sooner.”
“Yoruichi,” I growled, but she just laughed.
“Anyway, it's nice to finally meet you, Renji. Just in case Ichigo 'forgets' to tell you, we've got some business to discuss, once you're feeling better.”
He lifted an eyebrow and turned to me, then turned back to Yoruichi and replied, “It's always nice to meet a friend of Ichigo's, especially one so beautiful.”
“Ichigo, I hope Renji's manners rub off on you,” she said with a final grin at him. “So, are you two coming along with us?” she asked, watching as two of Kenpachi's men re-entered the room and made signals that it was time to go.
I shook my head. “No, there's too much evidence that we've been here. Our fingerprints are probably all over the room. My cellphone is here somewhere, broken though it is, and my knife is embedded in a guy's head. I think I need to stay and deal with the police.”
“I'll leave it to you, then,” she said with a grin. She turned to Kenpachi with a raised eyebrow and he gave her a savage grin as the two of them moved out of the room along with the last of his men. Once they left, I was suddenly impressed by the chill in the room as the autumn wind whipped inside through the broken windows, and I tried to roll the chair Renji was in to get him farther away from the open windows, but it was slow going due to all the broken glass. He tried to help me, but there wasn’t as much strength in his movements as usual, and I could see that he was looking drowsy. I felt my stomach knot as I looked at the blood that had run down his arm. What I’d been able to do seemed to have stopped a lot of it, but the bloodstains on his jeans and shirt looked so big. I didn't have long to think about it before the room was suddenly full of police, including a familiar face.
“Ichigo!” he said, apparently happy to see me.
“Shinji,” I replied with a nod. “I'm glad they sent you around this time.”
“I wouldn't have missed it,” he said, his features suddenly taking on a hard cast. “I've been after Aizen even since his first major fraud. I was part of the crew who arrested him that time, but we couldn't make anything stick. It seems like this time someone took their case against him even further, though.”
He was looking at me with a raised eyebrow as if waiting for the story, but I found my eyes straying down to Renji, who seemed to have fallen into a troubled doze. “I'd love to tell you the story, but I really need to get him taken care of,” I said, still looking at Renji.
When I finally glanced up at Shinji, he was grinning slyly at me. “Oh, is this your guy? Now I've definitely got to hear what the hell went on here.” I looked at him desperately and he laughed. “OK, I'm not that much of an asshole. There were some ambulances following us up here, and I'd guess the stretchers will be here in a couple of minutes. Just give me the short version now, but I'll be expecting you at my office tomorrow to give me all the details, right?”
“I'll be there,” I replied gratefully and then launched into a summary of the story, including how I'd gotten into the mess in the first place and how the situation that night had developed, but leaving out any mention about who my client was, or who shot the place up. “Renji and I were both under the conference table from around the time the lights went out,” I concluded. “When the shooting stopped and the lights came back on, the only people left in the room were dead ones.”
He shook his head, watching as Renji was transferred to a stretcher. “Sounds like some rival gang decided to take them out, or something,” Shinji said, giving me a curious glance but not saying anything further. “All right, then, I'll see you tomorrow to hear all the rest.”
“Thanks, Shinji,” I said as I followed the stretcher out of the room.
“You know, you'd get into a lot less trouble if you joined the force,” his voice followed me, along with his familiar refrain. I just shook my head in reply. He'd been trying to recruit me, without success, since the day I'd met him, during one of my first cases. I looked down at Renji as we got into the elevator. His eyelids were cracked open, and he smiled at me before closing them again. I decided worrying about public displays was ridiculous in a situation like this and held his hand all the way out to the ambulance.
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“Renji, come on, we've got to go inside,” I said, shaking him gently to try to wake him. Finally, his eyes opened and he floundered a bit trying to get out of the cab. I was able to give him a hand, but he kept leaning on me even after the cab had gone, and by the time we'd made it into the elevator, he'd moved on to groping. I was going to protest before he silenced me with a kiss so deep he took my breath away.
I hadn't wanted to leave his side when we got to the hospital, but a woman with a kind face and silvery hair had finally managed to calm me down enough to bring me to a nearby waiting room, assuring me that it simply looked like Renji just needed some stitches. I paced until they brought him back, and the loopy grin he'd given me nearly made my heart stop.
It was difficult to move from the elevator to the front door because all Renji seemed to want to do was to make out. They'd put his stitched-up arm in a little sling, but his free hand was moving all over, down inside my jeans and freely roaming inside the leather jacket, which was still the only thing I had on after having used my t-shirt as a bandage. I finally protested when he pinched one of my nipples. “Come on, we're going inside,” I demanded, grabbing his good hand and dragging him after me.
I managed to fumble the door shut and locked and to maneuver the two of us to the bedroom as Renji continued to feel me up. He didn't stop until I managed to flop him into bed, but instead looked me up and down as I took the leather jacket off and carefully put it on a chair in the corner. “Good,” he nearly purred. “Take the rest off, too.”
I was glad that the only light on was the small one on the bedside table that wasn't too bright, because it was possible I was blushing. “You know,” I said as I took off his boots and put them on the floor, “I would think you have a lot of other things to think about, with five stitches in you.”
He shrugged, then frowned and stopped moving his injured arm. “Not really. They said I was pretty lucky at the hospital. From what they told me, you're a lot more likely to get infected when the bullet goes into you, but I dodged at the last moment so the wound's a lot more like a cut.”
“So, how did you know to move, anyway? The last time I saw you, that pink haired guy was pointing his gun at your head,” I said, working carefully to take Renji's sling off and trying to keep my voice even as I remembered.
“I could tell from the way you looked that you had something in mind,” he replied, grinning slyly at me. “I just waited and got ready to go, because it was obvious that you were waiting for something.”
I grinned in response, unable to help it after seeing his. “Yeah, I didn't miss that nice shiner he was sporting. I figured that was you.”
“Hell if I was going to let some idiots kidnap me,” he replied, still smiling. “I was winning, too, against him and his four friends, until they pulled guns on me.”
Looking at his shirt, I realized that it was already partly shredded where it had been slit by the bullet, and it appeared to have been cut further in the emergency room. Sighing, I got some scissors from the next room and finished cutting the rest of his shirt off, figuring that it had already been ruined and not wanting to disturb his injury any further. “Are you going to cut off the rest of my clothes, too?” Renji asked, his voice suddenly rough and low.
I tried to ignore that comment and refused to look him in the eye, instead slowly unbuttoning his jeans and unzipping his fly, then stopping and not looking up. “Look, I'm sorry you got dragged into this today.”
“It wasn't you who dragged me into it, remember? It was those idiots,” he said, his voice light. “Besides, it wasn't all bad. I got to meet your friend Yoruichi, after all.”
“I can't believe you said that to her,” I replied as I slowly pulled off Renji's jeans. “I mean, she's already some kind of egomaniac.”
“Ichigo, just because someone knows they're attractive, it doesn't mean they don't like to hear someone else remind them.” I looked up at him as he finished speaking and suddenly found my heart in my throat, looking at him all splayed out in bed, and I felt a wave of guilt as I looked at the fresh bandage taped to his shoulder.
“Fuck, it probably messed up your tattoo and everything,” I said, trying to think about the last time I'd seen it, because apparently it was going to be the last time I saw it whole. “I really am sorry.”
When I finally looked up into Renji's eyes, expecting him to be angry, I was surprised by the heat in his expression instead. “This is the first time I can remember hearing you apologize for anything, Ichigo,” he said, and his voice was low and hot and so goddamned sexy that I could feel myself start to respond. “I think I'd better take advantage of it.”
Before I really knew what was happening, Renji had shifted and brought me in close to him. I scrambled to avoid touching his bad shoulder, but I couldn't manage to focus on it too much when he was kissing me like that. “Look, we can't do this tonight,” I said, trying to back away, but he had his good arm around me and was holding on to me tightly. “You need to rest, and you just got stitches.”
“Oh, for what I have in mind, I won't have to move around too much,” he said, and somehow his tone had gotten even lower and I could feel my cock twitch in anticipation.
“Renji, no, you should-”
“Don't make me wait anymore, Ichigo,” he said, and his tone had changed, sounding commanding and slightly pissed off as he moved back a little to look me in the eye. “When I was sitting there with a gun to my head, thinking that I was unlikely to make it out of that stupid board room, just hearing that blue-haired pretty boy try to deny that he got something from you that I wasn't going to live to get made me so fucking angry that I wanted to jump across the table and rip his head off. We lived, Ichigo,” he said, his tone dropping again as his mouth moved closer to my ear. “Don't tell me we don't get to celebrate that. I want you so bad. I can't tell you how many times when we were fooling around that I'd see you all hard and ready and I'd just want to push you down and ride your cock until you couldn't take anymore.”
By now I was breathing so hard it probably sounded like I was hyperventilating, just thinking about Renji riding me, and my jeans were so tight they were painful. I pulled back then, even against Renji's restraining hand, and I couldn't help but smirk at his disappointed expression. “You and your dirty mouth,” I said as I got my jeans and underwear off as quickly as I could, watching Renji return my smirk, looking even more sly than I did, I'm sure.
“You know you love it,” he said, grinning now as he watched me nearly rip his underwear off.
“Yeah, well, you'd better only lay there and look gorgeous or we're not going to be doing anything for the next week or so, and you sure as hell better not pop any of those stitches,” I warned, but I knew it probably sounded pretty weak because I was staring at Renji's body then. Somehow, the sight of him all laid out like that, knowing what we were about to do, caused me to see him in a completely new light. I reached out and ran my hands gently along his sides, trailed along the tattoos up his chest and neck to his face. “So fucking gorgeous,” I breathed into his lips before I kissed him, and when I came back up for air, he turned away as I caught the edge of the embarrassed look on his face.
“What, no one you've been with before has ever told you that?” I asked, shocked, and the look in his eyes as he darted them to meet mine for a second seemed to confirm that. “They're all a bunch of goddamned fools then. I think you're the most gorgeous man I've ever seen, Renji, and I want to make you feel so good that you scream for me,” I said, kissing his lips once more before I moved on, tracing the tattoos on his neck up to his ear, then sucking on his earlobe. A tremor ran through me as he groaned softly when I did that, and suddenly I wanted to trace every inch of his body so that I could hear more of those sounds. The cry he made as I bit and sucked on his collarbone, and then the moans he made when I moved to his nipples, sucking on them and teasing them with my tongue, sounded so different than his usual growls and occasional grunts. It sounded like he'd abandoned all of that to leave himself open to me, and it made me so hard for him that I could barely think. So, I forced myself to go slowly, licking and running my fingers along those tattoos on his chest and abs, tasting the pre-come he'd spilled so far and feeling like I was getting drunk on all of the delicious soft sounds he was making.
“Fuck, I remember when I first saw your cock,” I said as I tried to put my hand around it, lifting it to my lips as I felt it jump in my hand, “I just wanted to get it inside me.” And then I was sliding my lips down his length, relishing the gasp and shudder Renji made as I did.
“No, stop,” he ground out, and I pulled back after a few seconds, looking at him. “I'm going to come if you keep doing that, and I don't want to yet. I want you inside me first.” The sly look he was giving me made me shiver, so I stopped and grabbed one of the pillows instead, gesturing for him to raise his hips as I slid it under him, and when he bent his knees and spread his legs, all I could do at first was look.
“I can't believe you're this fucking beautiful everywhere,” I said, and then I was pushing his legs back so that I could see him better before I leaned down to swipe my tongue over his entrance. The keening moan he gave was such a turn on that I found myself grinding against the mattress just to take the edge off, but fuck if I didn't want to hear more of that. By the time he'd moved to full-throated groans as I slid my tongue partway inside him, I had to cut it short because I was going to come if I kept it up, so I moved away a little to fumble for the lube and a condom in the nightstand. I glanced at Renji and couldn't help but smile at his half-lidded eyes and wide pupils, and the expectancy in his look.
For a moment, I felt a little nervous under the weight of that gaze, so I said, as I got my hand nice and slick, “Tell me if I'm going too fast, or if it's too much.”
He snorted a little laugh as I moved closer to him. “Ichigo, I've done this before, and not all that long ago.”
I looked up at him momentarily, feeling my stomach start to drop, thinking he was about to come out with bad news until he chuckled. “Idiot. I didn't mean I fucked someone else. I just meant that since you wouldn't do me, I had to do myself.”
I swear to god my hands started shaking as I thought about it and I groaned as my cock twitched. “Fuck, you're waiting to mention this until now?”
He threw his head back as I slowly slid one finger into him. “Trust me, I'd have mentioned it sooner if I'd known how you'd react. Actually, you nearly found out not too long ago.” I watched as his eyelids fluttered closed as I buried my first finger in him, and then backed out. He felt so hot and tight around me that I could barely stand the wait, so I listened, hoping he'd say something distracting. “The other day, when you came home early, that's what I was doing in the shower. If I hadn't heard the front door opening, you might have caught me at it.”
Distracting in entirely the wrong way. “What were you thinking about when you did it?” I heard myself asking, somehow unable to keep the question in. I twisted my wrist on my next thrust in, and the moan Renji gave in response made me bite my lip to try to keep my own reactions in check.
“Well,” he began as he opened his big, dark eyes, “I was thinking about being in the shower with one hand on my cock and the other finger-fucking myself hard.” His eyes flew open for a moment as I snarled and thrust another finger inside him to join the first, and his hips rocked up to meet me. “Yeah, Ichigo, just like that.”
“Don't stop talking now,” I said breathlessly, driving into him now, hard enough to make him groan. “Tell me more.”
“Fuck,” he breathed, and I could almost see him trying to bring his thoughts together. He opened his eyes then, and they were wide, dark, and full of mischief. “In my dirty mind, it felt so good that I didn't notice anything else. Didn't notice you come into the bathroom or pulling the shower curtain back, and didn't see you staring at me with those hungry eyes at first. By the time I did, I could feel your gaze on me and see how turned on you were.”
He cried out and cursed as I slid another finger inside him and then crooked them. He shook and arched his back into the feeling, his head thrown back. I chuckled roughly and did it again, rubbing right over that spot, and I felt my stomach tighten as I watched his expression of ecstasy. Renji's eyes opened as I continued to thrust into him, and they looked unfocused and dark but somehow determined. “I was going to give you a show as I finished myself off, but that wasn't what you wanted. You told me how crazy I'd been making you and said that you were going to fuck me so hard that I wouldn't feel the need to touch myself for another week.”
Between his dirty mouth and his tight ass, I wasn't sure how much longer I could make it, but somehow I needed to hear the rest. “So what did you do?”
“You told me to get on the floor on all fours. I didn't want to miss out, so I did, and I arched my back and spread my legs just to tease you. The next thing I knew, you were behind me, biting me and growling, and then I felt you pushing into me.” He licked his lips, then shuddered as I found his spot again and stroked it.
“What happened next?” I asked, urging him on.
He smiled then. “That's around the time I heard you come back, so I had to get out of the shower to make sure it wasn't someone breaking in.”
“You little tease,” I muttered, pulling my hands free, and feeling my cock twitch at Renji's disappointed noise. I fumbled the condom on and somehow managed to lube myself up with shaking hands, feeling like I was a teenager again.
“Yeah, fuck me, Ichigo,” Renji said, low and promising, and I could feel him wrapping his legs around me as I moved closer.
I felt like all the breath was sucked out of me as I eased into him, especially as I listened to the cries he made as I did. I really hadn't expected Renji to be so vocal during all the times I'd thought about (OK, to be honest, fantasized about) this, and I found myself even more surprised that it was a total turn-on. Of course, the fact that I was now buried about as deep in Renji as I could be was keeping me on edge as much as his wanton moans in my ear. After a few moments, he opened his eyes halfway, his expression a little annoyed. “Hey you could move, you know, I'm not going to break.”
“Yeah, I know,” I mumbled, trying to get myself together enough to move without coming immediately, while he chuckled in my ear.
“Been a long time has it?” he whispered, leaning in.
“You know it has,” I responded, leaning away from him a little as I thrust in quickly, getting a groan from him that seemed to run right up my spine.
“It's a shame,” he replied, his voice low and breathless as he leaned in to kiss me. “All this talent gone to waste.”
He was clutching at me then, and I knew I was holding on to him too tightly, but I couldn't stop as I buried my face into his hair, my hips seeming to move by themselves to draw even more delicious noises out of Renji. He was loud, but I wanted to make him louder. I wanted him to feel it, how good he'd always make me feel, how good he'd feel when he finally let go, and one look at the mischief, lust, and pleasure on his face made me want to wind him up so high that it would take him a while to come back down, so somehow I made myself pull back and slow down a bit. I could see the disapproval on Renji's face, but he was still too out of breath to comment on it.
“You look really good like this, Renji,” I said, trying to make it sound slow and liquid, but with the way my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest, I was probably just lucky he could hear me at all.
“Fuck you,” he replied, still mostly out of breath and slightly flushed, and I swear I just wanted to lick that slightly defiant but mostly turned on expression off his face.
“Oh, you will. I can't wait to see how good you look when you're riding my cock,” I said with a smirk, trying to keep his attention away from how I kept slightly changing the angle of my hips, trying to get just the right sound out of him...
I had to hold him down, finally, when I found the right spot. He was so loud and wild when I did that the feeling just ran right down my spine, and the sight of all that tattooed skin spread out under me, his red shock of hair spread out all around him, and the way he was holding on to me as if I was his last support before he got swept away drew me right into all that wildness. I didn't want to hold on anymore, I wanted to shove us both over the edge.
I leaned in further to lick and bite down on his neck just the way I knew he liked, pulled him close and fucked him just the way his breathless moans were begging me to. Once I was thrusting into him as hard as he liked and we were pressing so close I could feel his cock moving between the two of us, slick and hot and pulsing, I could feel my own control starting to slip away as I heard him cry out again. I'd just looked up to see his face when I felt him come between the two of us. Just the fact that it was him, and that he was coming for me while I was inside him, was almost enough, but when I saw the expression on his face when he came, all heat and pleasure with an edge of bliss, I couldn't help but follow.
Fortunately, I didn’t collapse into a heap afterwards, but my arms were trembling enough to almost give out when I really came back to myself. I realized I wasn't as far gone as Renji as I found something to clean him up with, but once I started looking at him it was hard to stop. Of course, his strong, gorgeous body held my gaze, his fascinating tattoos, and the long red hair thrown out behind him, but what kept my attention were his eyes. Slightly unfocused still, but the heat in them drew me in as I watched him, and I found myself seeing all of the things I'd found in there before, like the kindness when he brought food for my usually empty refrigerator and the care he showed when he held me late at night, when I could pretend I was asleep and not let him know how much I liked it. I found myself remembering all of the other little things he'd done for me, the times he'd reached out to me, included me, helped me when he didn't have to, looked out for me, and the way he'd made my friends love him the first time they met him, and how he made me...well... I'm going to have to figure out how to do whatever it takes to keep him with me, I finally realized, and instead of the thought feeling strange, somehow it seemed like the last puzzle piece had fallen into place.
I smiled as he stirred. “I figured maybe you were out for the night,” I teased, having a look at the bandage on his shoulder. No blood showed through, and when I lifted up a corner to peek, it seemed as if all the stitches were still in place.
“You're not that good,” Renji replied, but I could see him trying not to grin until it turned into a yawn.
I watched him for a moment, until I was satisfied that it seemed like he was going to remain awake for a little while. “How do you feel?” I asked, trying to ease myself into what I actually wanted to say.
He threw his good arm back and stretched his gorgeous tattooed body as he looked at me. “Pretty good,” he finally said, and something about his expression told me that he'd figured out that I had something to talk about and he was waiting for me to come out with it.
Mentally urging myself to just jump into the topic, I began. “I've been meaning to ask you something, Renji.” I almost cringed at the words; did it count if I'd really been seriously thinking about it only for the past few minutes?
“So go on,” he said, and my brief glance at his face showed dark eyes with an expression that was hard to decipher.
“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to move in here with me.” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush, and when I finished, I couldn't think of one more thing to add to make it sound less abrupt or disconnected to anything we'd been discussing up until now. I finally chanced a look over at Renji and I could feel something in my chest warm at the look of surprised pleasure he was giving me, at least until a suspicious expression overtook the rest.
“What brought this on, all of a sudden?” he asked, and suddenly I found myself mentally scrambling to come up with an explanation that didn't sound too ridiculous
Finally, I gave a little sigh and tried to just explain how it all came about, while not mentioning the embarrassing epiphany Tatsuki had forced upon me. “Over the past couple of days, I guess, but especially today, I just realized how much I want you with me.” Cringing at how lame that probably sounded, I continued. “You don't have to make up your mind right away or anything, but-”
“All right, I'll move in with you,” Renji's voice interrupted mine, and I couldn't help but stare stupidly at him for a minute while he smirked at me. “If you were going to say that you wanted to keep me here so you could protect me,” he explained, “I was going to have to punch you in the face, but I liked what you had to say a lot more.”
His tone was low and teasing by the time he finished, and I knew I was blushing. “Bastard,” I muttered, more embarrassed than angry.
“Oh, come on, don't be like that,” he replied, pulling me close with his good arm.
I switched off the bedside lamp and settled in beside him. “I was thinking we should take off a couple of days and go somewhere, with what I just earned on this contract, but now I'm thinking we should probably spend that time cleaning out your old place and moving you in here. Which reminds me, Shuu said he wanted a call right away when you got back,” I said, making a move to get out of bed, but Renji pulled me in tighter.
“I'll take care of it in the morning,” he told me. “Trust me, it'll be worse to wake him up in the middle of the night.”
I nodded against his shoulder and threw an arm around his chest, suddenly unafraid to hold onto him, and I felt Renji chuckle under my grip. I realized we still had a lot of details to settle and I had plenty of unfinished business to be taken care of in the next few days, but somehow at that moment I felt light, much lighter than I had in a long time, so I closed my eyes and relaxed, silently thanking everything that had helped us come to this moment as I slipped off into sleep.
Click here for Chapter 5, part 1
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As always, comments about what you liked and what you thought could be improved would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
-WriterX
The people in this story are fictional, and so you might see them doing things that aren't strictly safe from a sexual standpoint. You are a real person, so please be safe when you play! If you want more information about how that all works, please click here, or here...there are plenty of other sites with good info on the web, too, so check them out and be safe.
All of the people depicted (or referred to) in sexual situations in my stories are intended to be and considered to be by the author of the legal age of consent in any jurisdiction, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from. OK?
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Missed Chapter 4, part 1? Click here.
“Why doesn't he sit here,” Grimmjow replied, smiling like a shark and rising from his chair. My eyes went wide as I actually noticed him for the first time, and then I scowled as Aizen motioned me to go in that direction. I guess he got out early for good behavior, I thought. As I neared the empty chair, Grimmjow put his hand on my shoulder, as if to guide me, and bent his head to my mine. “You look good, Ichigo,” he murmured into my ear. “Good enough that I'd be willing to pull some strings to give you a goodbye fuck before you get your head blown off for real.”
Now, I have to take a moment here to admit that I'd always liked Grimm's voice. It was deep and rough and when he'd talk low into my ear like that, it used to be able to get me going in a minute. At that moment all I felt was annoyance at his fucking presumption, however. “Grimm,” I replied in a clearly audible tone, “I told you the last time I saw you that it was over between the two of us. Get your hands off of me.”
His eyes narrowed and he muttered, “You're such a little whore for cock. I'm sure you'll want one last good fuck as a send off.”
I glared at him as I sat, now remembering one of his less charming habits that I didn't miss at all. I guess some people are into it, but I find it a complete turn off to be insulted in the middle of sex. Actually, it pisses me off enough to want to fight, so now that I think about it, maybe that's why Grimm used to do it... “Yeah, I like cock,” I replied calmly, at a conversational volume. “And I don't have a problem admitting it, unlike some people,” I continued, glancing up at Grimm with what was probably a completely evil look. “Of course, once I beat you in hand-to-hand combat, it seemed to loosen your tongue. It was pretty fucking hot, really, the way you begged and moaned for it-”
“Shut up!” he hissed in return, leaning in as if he wanted to shut me up himself.
“Then get your fucking hands off me, Grimm,” I said, glaring at him and willing him to move his hand off my shoulder.
He did quickly and stepped back a little, as if he gave me enough space I'd stop talking. As for me, my gaze swept the table quickly, and I saw that some of his colleagues were giving him the most curious and interested looks. I darted a glance almost directly across the table at Renji and couldn't help my look of surprise. I don't know exactly what I'd expected after that exchange, but having Renji almost glaring at me, as if he'd somehow been cheated, wasn't it. “So, you'd top him and not me?” he asked, his voice rough.
I shuddered as everything inside me seemed to grind to a halt, and I blinked, trying to gather my racing thoughts before answering. I know it sounds ridiculous, but for the moment, I forgot why we were there, and the rest of the board room and even the world around us had disappeared and he was the only other person there. “You...I didn't know you wanted...I thought...” I trailed off and watched Renji turn his face to the side slightly.
I'd never seen him blush, and he wasn't now, but the embarrassed look on his face was probably even more expressive than that would have been. “I thought maybe you wouldn't be into it, so I didn't say anything,” he murmured, but somehow it was louder to me than if he'd shouted it.
Suddenly, I was smirking as I tried to catch his eye. “You know,” I replied, and I could hear how low and rough my own voice sounded as I spoke, “all you have to do is ask for it.”
Renji's head shot up and he looked at me with suspicion at first, but something about my lustful grin convinced him. He shot me an interesting look of his own then, all half-lidded fire, and opened his mouth to speak before he was rudely interrupted.
“Gentlemen,” Aizen’s voice sounded out, and the two of us both turned as one to glare at him. It was on the tip of my tongue to yell at him to shut up, but somehow I swallowed it at the last minute. Probably better not to irritate him so much that he decides to put a bullet in my head before the backup gets here, I thought.
“Please, gentlemen,” he continued, his smile seeming to have a little edge now, “we really do need to begin the meeting. You can finish this…charming conversation in whatever time you have afterwards.”
Fuck that, I remember thinking. I’m living through this for sure now. I stole another look at Renji, thinking about what he’d said, when I noticed the man standing by him for the first time, a gun pointed at Renji’s head. If I could have glared at myself for my denseness I would have, but instead I glared at him, memorizing his features so that I could deal with him properly later. He was fairly tall and thin with shoulder-length pink hair and designer glasses that somehow matched his expensive-looking suit. The man seemed highly irritated, however, and I figured it had at least something to do with the bruise along his jawline, a split lip, and the start of a really big black eye. I smiled to myself, enjoying the physical evidence of Renji’s struggle not to come along quietly, and resolved to ask him about it later.
I turned carefully in the direction of the first presenter of the evening as the reality of the situation seemed to sink into my mind again, and mentally reviewed my priorities, reminding myself to keep focused and not spend all my time staring at Renji. First, keep rolling. I twisted the wrist I held in my lap so that I could see the snap on the cuff of the leather jacket I wore and gave a sideways glance down. Something that looked like a little reflector winked back at me greenly, causing me to grin again. The reflector was actually an LED that was telling me that the tiny wireless cameras and condenser mics, looking like fancy studs holding the collar of my coat down, were hard at work. Yoruichi had impressed on me when she’d brought me the jacket I now wore how expensive it had been to have it made, with batteries and a powerful broadcaster sewn into the heavy lining of the coat, and promised a very high bill for my client if anything happened to it. My efforts to distract the people that I knew would be frisking me from focusing on the coat had been successful, fortunately, so I was still wearing it. Unfortunately, it seemed it had been sized for Urahara, so although it fit otherwise I couldn’t button it up, something that didn’t seem to matter in the warm conference room. Ururu had arranged that the video and audio output would be wirelessly streamed to several places so that whatever I could film wouldn’t be lost, regardless of what happened to Renji and I.
Just the idea of something happening to him made me swallow painfully, and I gave Renji a sideways look automatically, as if to assure myself he was still there. He met my gaze, his look intense, as if waiting to follow my lead. Second priority, I thought as I tried to deliver a cocky grin I wasn't quite feeling at the moment, get Renji out of here, regardless of the cost. It was my fault that he was in the room at all, involved in something that didn't touch on him in the least, and so I needed to do anything I could to be sure he could get out of there safely.
Last, I needed to get out of there myself, or at least in repairable shape. Since I'd resolved that there was no way I was going to die now, I just had to figure out a way to make all of that happen, and whatever Yoruichi had planned was the key to that. I turned to the next speaker, not really focusing on the reports about how many people had been smuggled to what locations and how much profit the company was making as a result, or how many tons of drugs had been delivered and the millions of dollars that had been made. The reports did make the nervous tension in my stomach heighten, however, because everything I heard made it clear that the people around the table had no regard for anyone or anything other than making money, and that killing the two of us wouldn't be any more difficult mentally for any of them than going to lunch. As the presentations continued, I found that I was listening and waiting for sounds outside the room, hoping that Yoruichi's plans were actually going to materialize. She'd disappeared a couple of hours before I came here, leaving Ururu and I to finalize the details of the wireless recordings. When I'd asked Yoruichi what she had in mind, she'd laughed.
“Ichigo, just trust me. We need to get enough on these guys to put them in jail for the rest of their lives, and then I'll be there at just the right time to help you two get out. I'll be monitoring you the whole time, just in case things get bad early,” she’d said, dangling a sticky ear piece in her hand. “I just want to see if I can get anyone else interested in helping out, too.”
She'd been completely closed-mouthed when I'd asked for details, just saying that she'd take care of everything herself if she was unable to get more help, so unfortunately I had little idea of what her plans were, so I waited, trying not to start at every creak the building made.
It was when the pink-haired man behind Renji began to talk about how much money the company stood to make from the illegal human experiments he was conducting that her first move occurred. When the lights went out, I was up and moving before I realized it, standing while shoving the chair I was sitting in backwards in Grimm's direction. At the same time, I'd flung the edges of the leather jacket wide and launched myself at the big polished wood table in front of me, and then I was sliding across it on my chest in Renji's direction. I was about halfway across when I saw Renji and the pink-haired man slightly in the muzzle flash of his gun.
It was suddenly dark again and I heard a choked snarl that didn't sound quite human as my heart and stomach sank into the ground. I heard shouts from others in the room to hold fire as I collided with a chair at the end of my slide. In my memory of where the pink-haired man had been standing as he shot at Renji, I grabbed for his gun arm on one side and his shoulder on the other. It felt like I was gripping his forearm on the side with the gun, so I quickly slid my hand out to his wrist, fury making my hold strong. My other hand had somehow gotten hold of my punch dagger as I'd leaped out of my chair; the idiot who'd been frisking me had been way too distracted to find it on my key ring, I guess.
“You didn't think you could shoot him and get away with it, did you?” I asked gutturally, almost unable to speak as my stomach lurched, leaning in close to the man's ear as my fist moved from his shoulder, up his neck, to the edge of his jaw as his other arm shook, obviously trying to move to get a shot off on me. As I heard him breathe in to ready himself for a reply, I pulled back a little and then gave a short punch, burying the dagger in his neck, along the edge of his jaw, the path the jugular takes. The only reply he gave was a gurgling shriek and a gunshot at the floor at the same moment all of the windows around us shattered.
Instinctively, I let go of the man to crouch in the chair I'd landed in, only to realize for the first time that it was empty. I would have started to wonder where the fuck Renji was, but the sudden sound of gunfire from every direction caught my attention instead, so I dropped to the ground, rolling under the large conference table at almost the same moment. Somehow, through the noise of the firing, I heard a grunt as I hit something. Steeling myself for an attack and realizing I no longer had anything in hand, I relaxed a split second later as I realized I'd recognized the voice. “Renji,” I said, leaning in so that he could hear me over the gunfire, “is that you?”
“Ichigo?” I heard his voice respond, a little more weakly than I was used to hearing, but just the sound filled me with such relief that before I knew it my heart seemed to have risen back out of the floor and I was gripping his arm tightly. He hissed in response, and I immediately let go.
“Fuck, I forgot! Where did that pink-haired bastard shoot you?” I moved my ear near his mouth so that I could hear his response, since the sound level in the room was nearly deafening now.
I heard something about Renji's shoulder, and that he thought he'd just gotten winged, so I couldn't help but reach out to try to investigate, more gently this time. His shoulder felt slick with blood and my stomach seemed to contract in on itself, thoughts flying through my mind about how bad his injury might be. I shook my head, trying to drive them away, and moved to act instead. Carefully, I tried to wipe my left hand clean on my jeans, knowing that I probably had some of the pink haired man's blood on it, and then threw the leather jacket off and to the side. Scrabbling with it, I pulled off my long sleeved t-shirt, thankful that I'd chosen dark colors that day.
“Try to relax,” I told Renji as I folded the bottom of the shirt about even with the width of the sleeves to form a long makeshift bandage. “This is probably going to hurt when I tie it.”
I put the part of the t-shirt with the most fabric on it over where it seemed like the most bleeding was occurring on Renji's arm, and then folded the arms of the shirt under his arm, finally tying it fairly tightly. The only thing I heard out of him was another hiss as my first knot pulled in. “Are you all right?” I asked, putting my mouth near his ear and almost whispering, since the gunfire in the room had dwindled to the infrequent shot.
“Yeah,” he said, and seemed about to say more, but the lights suddenly went back on. I looked at him, eyes wide, my finger pressed to my lips. He nodded, and I bit my lip as I studied him for a moment, a little blood on his face, his eyes weary.
Ripping my glance away, I looked nervously around, my gaze covering both open sides of the conference table we were underneath. Bodies lay to either side of us, and I leaned over to tug a gun out of someone's lifeless hand which had somehow ended up near our feet. I could hear murmured voices discussing something and coming closer. I bit my lip as I realized I was crouched protectively over Renji, but I didn't move as I somehow tried to protect him from both sides. I still wasn't sure yet who was the victor in the fight, if there was one at all, so I had to be prepared for any possibility.
I held my breath as footsteps approached from the side of the table I'd been sitting on not long before. They sounded like heavy boots, making a crunching, grinding noise as they walked over shattered window glass and ground it into the carpet. I looked Renji in the eye, hoping it wasn't the last time and trying to convey everything I'd never said about how much he meant to me, in case I'd never be able to. A pair of legs in black ripstop fabric pants and black combat boots appeared at the edge of where we could see and began to slowly walk by. I tried to calm my breathing and aim the gun, reminding myself not to fire until I'd identified who this was. Suddenly, the legs stopped and I saw Kenpachi's face appear, peering under the conference table.
“Kurosaki?” he asked. “What the hell happened to your shirt?”
“Don't ask,” I muttered as I relaxed to sit on the floor next to Renji. “I guess this means you're in control here now?”
He made a dismissive noise and looked a little depressed again. “I guess. It was sort of disappointing, really. They didn't put up that much of a fight.”
I lifted an eyebrow as I looked at him for a moment. “In that case, we're coming out,” I replied, putting the leather jacket back on and helping Renji out from under the table.
“I'm not an invalid, you know,” he grumbled at me.
“No,” I agreed. “You've just lost a lot of blood. Don't be an idiot; sit here before you fall over.”
He stumbled a little before I was able to get him into the chair I'd sat in before. Renji glared at me for a moment, but his expression softened when he had a chance to study mine. “I'll be all right, Ichigo,” he said in a low voice, and I had to bite my lip again before I said anything stupid.
I looked around, trying to get hold of the situation, and saw a few motionless bodies on the floor. “So, how many did you get?” I asked Kenpachi.
He grinned savagely in response. “Four, it looks like. Not too bad, since we only sustained a few injuries ourselves,” he finished, looking over in the corner where one of his men was bandaging the wound of another. I raised my eyebrow, but then I realized they were all wearing flak vests which probably explained the lack of fatalities.
“Was one of those bodies a pink-haired guy with a knife in his head?” I asked, craning my neck to peer over to the other side of the table but not being able to see that far.
Kenpachi laughed then, throwing his head back. “I thought that knife looked familiar! I'm glad to see you're such a dangerous man, Kurosaki. When are we sparring again?”
Never, if I can help it, was my first thought, but I smiled instead. “Maybe you should try my teacher. She says I'm the only decent opponent she has these days, but I really think she's just being kind. She seems to be well beyond my level now.”
Yoruichi took that moment to enter the room. She was wearing a completely form-fitting black bodysuit and anything she'd wanted to carry with her seemed to be strung from a belt at her waist. Kenpachi turned to watch her with all the hunger of someone who hadn't eaten in weeks being shown his favorite dish. “That sounds good,” he said, and I realized he was replying to me even though he wasn't looking in my direction. “I've always liked strong women.”
Grinning, and obviously enjoying the attention, Yoruichi came up to Renji and stuck out her hand. “Hi, I'm Shihoin Yoruichi. Ichigo and I have been friends since he was a kid, so I'm a little disappointed he hasn't come by to introduce you to us sooner.”
“Yoruichi,” I growled, but she just laughed.
“Anyway, it's nice to finally meet you, Renji. Just in case Ichigo 'forgets' to tell you, we've got some business to discuss, once you're feeling better.”
He lifted an eyebrow and turned to me, then turned back to Yoruichi and replied, “It's always nice to meet a friend of Ichigo's, especially one so beautiful.”
“Ichigo, I hope Renji's manners rub off on you,” she said with a final grin at him. “So, are you two coming along with us?” she asked, watching as two of Kenpachi's men re-entered the room and made signals that it was time to go.
I shook my head. “No, there's too much evidence that we've been here. Our fingerprints are probably all over the room. My cellphone is here somewhere, broken though it is, and my knife is embedded in a guy's head. I think I need to stay and deal with the police.”
“I'll leave it to you, then,” she said with a grin. She turned to Kenpachi with a raised eyebrow and he gave her a savage grin as the two of them moved out of the room along with the last of his men. Once they left, I was suddenly impressed by the chill in the room as the autumn wind whipped inside through the broken windows, and I tried to roll the chair Renji was in to get him farther away from the open windows, but it was slow going due to all the broken glass. He tried to help me, but there wasn’t as much strength in his movements as usual, and I could see that he was looking drowsy. I felt my stomach knot as I looked at the blood that had run down his arm. What I’d been able to do seemed to have stopped a lot of it, but the bloodstains on his jeans and shirt looked so big. I didn't have long to think about it before the room was suddenly full of police, including a familiar face.
“Ichigo!” he said, apparently happy to see me.
“Shinji,” I replied with a nod. “I'm glad they sent you around this time.”
“I wouldn't have missed it,” he said, his features suddenly taking on a hard cast. “I've been after Aizen even since his first major fraud. I was part of the crew who arrested him that time, but we couldn't make anything stick. It seems like this time someone took their case against him even further, though.”
He was looking at me with a raised eyebrow as if waiting for the story, but I found my eyes straying down to Renji, who seemed to have fallen into a troubled doze. “I'd love to tell you the story, but I really need to get him taken care of,” I said, still looking at Renji.
When I finally glanced up at Shinji, he was grinning slyly at me. “Oh, is this your guy? Now I've definitely got to hear what the hell went on here.” I looked at him desperately and he laughed. “OK, I'm not that much of an asshole. There were some ambulances following us up here, and I'd guess the stretchers will be here in a couple of minutes. Just give me the short version now, but I'll be expecting you at my office tomorrow to give me all the details, right?”
“I'll be there,” I replied gratefully and then launched into a summary of the story, including how I'd gotten into the mess in the first place and how the situation that night had developed, but leaving out any mention about who my client was, or who shot the place up. “Renji and I were both under the conference table from around the time the lights went out,” I concluded. “When the shooting stopped and the lights came back on, the only people left in the room were dead ones.”
He shook his head, watching as Renji was transferred to a stretcher. “Sounds like some rival gang decided to take them out, or something,” Shinji said, giving me a curious glance but not saying anything further. “All right, then, I'll see you tomorrow to hear all the rest.”
“Thanks, Shinji,” I said as I followed the stretcher out of the room.
“You know, you'd get into a lot less trouble if you joined the force,” his voice followed me, along with his familiar refrain. I just shook my head in reply. He'd been trying to recruit me, without success, since the day I'd met him, during one of my first cases. I looked down at Renji as we got into the elevator. His eyelids were cracked open, and he smiled at me before closing them again. I decided worrying about public displays was ridiculous in a situation like this and held his hand all the way out to the ambulance.
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“Renji, come on, we've got to go inside,” I said, shaking him gently to try to wake him. Finally, his eyes opened and he floundered a bit trying to get out of the cab. I was able to give him a hand, but he kept leaning on me even after the cab had gone, and by the time we'd made it into the elevator, he'd moved on to groping. I was going to protest before he silenced me with a kiss so deep he took my breath away.
I hadn't wanted to leave his side when we got to the hospital, but a woman with a kind face and silvery hair had finally managed to calm me down enough to bring me to a nearby waiting room, assuring me that it simply looked like Renji just needed some stitches. I paced until they brought him back, and the loopy grin he'd given me nearly made my heart stop.
It was difficult to move from the elevator to the front door because all Renji seemed to want to do was to make out. They'd put his stitched-up arm in a little sling, but his free hand was moving all over, down inside my jeans and freely roaming inside the leather jacket, which was still the only thing I had on after having used my t-shirt as a bandage. I finally protested when he pinched one of my nipples. “Come on, we're going inside,” I demanded, grabbing his good hand and dragging him after me.
I managed to fumble the door shut and locked and to maneuver the two of us to the bedroom as Renji continued to feel me up. He didn't stop until I managed to flop him into bed, but instead looked me up and down as I took the leather jacket off and carefully put it on a chair in the corner. “Good,” he nearly purred. “Take the rest off, too.”
I was glad that the only light on was the small one on the bedside table that wasn't too bright, because it was possible I was blushing. “You know,” I said as I took off his boots and put them on the floor, “I would think you have a lot of other things to think about, with five stitches in you.”
He shrugged, then frowned and stopped moving his injured arm. “Not really. They said I was pretty lucky at the hospital. From what they told me, you're a lot more likely to get infected when the bullet goes into you, but I dodged at the last moment so the wound's a lot more like a cut.”
“So, how did you know to move, anyway? The last time I saw you, that pink haired guy was pointing his gun at your head,” I said, working carefully to take Renji's sling off and trying to keep my voice even as I remembered.
“I could tell from the way you looked that you had something in mind,” he replied, grinning slyly at me. “I just waited and got ready to go, because it was obvious that you were waiting for something.”
I grinned in response, unable to help it after seeing his. “Yeah, I didn't miss that nice shiner he was sporting. I figured that was you.”
“Hell if I was going to let some idiots kidnap me,” he replied, still smiling. “I was winning, too, against him and his four friends, until they pulled guns on me.”
Looking at his shirt, I realized that it was already partly shredded where it had been slit by the bullet, and it appeared to have been cut further in the emergency room. Sighing, I got some scissors from the next room and finished cutting the rest of his shirt off, figuring that it had already been ruined and not wanting to disturb his injury any further. “Are you going to cut off the rest of my clothes, too?” Renji asked, his voice suddenly rough and low.
I tried to ignore that comment and refused to look him in the eye, instead slowly unbuttoning his jeans and unzipping his fly, then stopping and not looking up. “Look, I'm sorry you got dragged into this today.”
“It wasn't you who dragged me into it, remember? It was those idiots,” he said, his voice light. “Besides, it wasn't all bad. I got to meet your friend Yoruichi, after all.”
“I can't believe you said that to her,” I replied as I slowly pulled off Renji's jeans. “I mean, she's already some kind of egomaniac.”
“Ichigo, just because someone knows they're attractive, it doesn't mean they don't like to hear someone else remind them.” I looked up at him as he finished speaking and suddenly found my heart in my throat, looking at him all splayed out in bed, and I felt a wave of guilt as I looked at the fresh bandage taped to his shoulder.
“Fuck, it probably messed up your tattoo and everything,” I said, trying to think about the last time I'd seen it, because apparently it was going to be the last time I saw it whole. “I really am sorry.”
When I finally looked up into Renji's eyes, expecting him to be angry, I was surprised by the heat in his expression instead. “This is the first time I can remember hearing you apologize for anything, Ichigo,” he said, and his voice was low and hot and so goddamned sexy that I could feel myself start to respond. “I think I'd better take advantage of it.”
Before I really knew what was happening, Renji had shifted and brought me in close to him. I scrambled to avoid touching his bad shoulder, but I couldn't manage to focus on it too much when he was kissing me like that. “Look, we can't do this tonight,” I said, trying to back away, but he had his good arm around me and was holding on to me tightly. “You need to rest, and you just got stitches.”
“Oh, for what I have in mind, I won't have to move around too much,” he said, and somehow his tone had gotten even lower and I could feel my cock twitch in anticipation.
“Renji, no, you should-”
“Don't make me wait anymore, Ichigo,” he said, and his tone had changed, sounding commanding and slightly pissed off as he moved back a little to look me in the eye. “When I was sitting there with a gun to my head, thinking that I was unlikely to make it out of that stupid board room, just hearing that blue-haired pretty boy try to deny that he got something from you that I wasn't going to live to get made me so fucking angry that I wanted to jump across the table and rip his head off. We lived, Ichigo,” he said, his tone dropping again as his mouth moved closer to my ear. “Don't tell me we don't get to celebrate that. I want you so bad. I can't tell you how many times when we were fooling around that I'd see you all hard and ready and I'd just want to push you down and ride your cock until you couldn't take anymore.”
By now I was breathing so hard it probably sounded like I was hyperventilating, just thinking about Renji riding me, and my jeans were so tight they were painful. I pulled back then, even against Renji's restraining hand, and I couldn't help but smirk at his disappointed expression. “You and your dirty mouth,” I said as I got my jeans and underwear off as quickly as I could, watching Renji return my smirk, looking even more sly than I did, I'm sure.
“You know you love it,” he said, grinning now as he watched me nearly rip his underwear off.
“Yeah, well, you'd better only lay there and look gorgeous or we're not going to be doing anything for the next week or so, and you sure as hell better not pop any of those stitches,” I warned, but I knew it probably sounded pretty weak because I was staring at Renji's body then. Somehow, the sight of him all laid out like that, knowing what we were about to do, caused me to see him in a completely new light. I reached out and ran my hands gently along his sides, trailed along the tattoos up his chest and neck to his face. “So fucking gorgeous,” I breathed into his lips before I kissed him, and when I came back up for air, he turned away as I caught the edge of the embarrassed look on his face.
“What, no one you've been with before has ever told you that?” I asked, shocked, and the look in his eyes as he darted them to meet mine for a second seemed to confirm that. “They're all a bunch of goddamned fools then. I think you're the most gorgeous man I've ever seen, Renji, and I want to make you feel so good that you scream for me,” I said, kissing his lips once more before I moved on, tracing the tattoos on his neck up to his ear, then sucking on his earlobe. A tremor ran through me as he groaned softly when I did that, and suddenly I wanted to trace every inch of his body so that I could hear more of those sounds. The cry he made as I bit and sucked on his collarbone, and then the moans he made when I moved to his nipples, sucking on them and teasing them with my tongue, sounded so different than his usual growls and occasional grunts. It sounded like he'd abandoned all of that to leave himself open to me, and it made me so hard for him that I could barely think. So, I forced myself to go slowly, licking and running my fingers along those tattoos on his chest and abs, tasting the pre-come he'd spilled so far and feeling like I was getting drunk on all of the delicious soft sounds he was making.
“Fuck, I remember when I first saw your cock,” I said as I tried to put my hand around it, lifting it to my lips as I felt it jump in my hand, “I just wanted to get it inside me.” And then I was sliding my lips down his length, relishing the gasp and shudder Renji made as I did.
“No, stop,” he ground out, and I pulled back after a few seconds, looking at him. “I'm going to come if you keep doing that, and I don't want to yet. I want you inside me first.” The sly look he was giving me made me shiver, so I stopped and grabbed one of the pillows instead, gesturing for him to raise his hips as I slid it under him, and when he bent his knees and spread his legs, all I could do at first was look.
“I can't believe you're this fucking beautiful everywhere,” I said, and then I was pushing his legs back so that I could see him better before I leaned down to swipe my tongue over his entrance. The keening moan he gave was such a turn on that I found myself grinding against the mattress just to take the edge off, but fuck if I didn't want to hear more of that. By the time he'd moved to full-throated groans as I slid my tongue partway inside him, I had to cut it short because I was going to come if I kept it up, so I moved away a little to fumble for the lube and a condom in the nightstand. I glanced at Renji and couldn't help but smile at his half-lidded eyes and wide pupils, and the expectancy in his look.
For a moment, I felt a little nervous under the weight of that gaze, so I said, as I got my hand nice and slick, “Tell me if I'm going too fast, or if it's too much.”
He snorted a little laugh as I moved closer to him. “Ichigo, I've done this before, and not all that long ago.”
I looked up at him momentarily, feeling my stomach start to drop, thinking he was about to come out with bad news until he chuckled. “Idiot. I didn't mean I fucked someone else. I just meant that since you wouldn't do me, I had to do myself.”
I swear to god my hands started shaking as I thought about it and I groaned as my cock twitched. “Fuck, you're waiting to mention this until now?”
He threw his head back as I slowly slid one finger into him. “Trust me, I'd have mentioned it sooner if I'd known how you'd react. Actually, you nearly found out not too long ago.” I watched as his eyelids fluttered closed as I buried my first finger in him, and then backed out. He felt so hot and tight around me that I could barely stand the wait, so I listened, hoping he'd say something distracting. “The other day, when you came home early, that's what I was doing in the shower. If I hadn't heard the front door opening, you might have caught me at it.”
Distracting in entirely the wrong way. “What were you thinking about when you did it?” I heard myself asking, somehow unable to keep the question in. I twisted my wrist on my next thrust in, and the moan Renji gave in response made me bite my lip to try to keep my own reactions in check.
“Well,” he began as he opened his big, dark eyes, “I was thinking about being in the shower with one hand on my cock and the other finger-fucking myself hard.” His eyes flew open for a moment as I snarled and thrust another finger inside him to join the first, and his hips rocked up to meet me. “Yeah, Ichigo, just like that.”
“Don't stop talking now,” I said breathlessly, driving into him now, hard enough to make him groan. “Tell me more.”
“Fuck,” he breathed, and I could almost see him trying to bring his thoughts together. He opened his eyes then, and they were wide, dark, and full of mischief. “In my dirty mind, it felt so good that I didn't notice anything else. Didn't notice you come into the bathroom or pulling the shower curtain back, and didn't see you staring at me with those hungry eyes at first. By the time I did, I could feel your gaze on me and see how turned on you were.”
He cried out and cursed as I slid another finger inside him and then crooked them. He shook and arched his back into the feeling, his head thrown back. I chuckled roughly and did it again, rubbing right over that spot, and I felt my stomach tighten as I watched his expression of ecstasy. Renji's eyes opened as I continued to thrust into him, and they looked unfocused and dark but somehow determined. “I was going to give you a show as I finished myself off, but that wasn't what you wanted. You told me how crazy I'd been making you and said that you were going to fuck me so hard that I wouldn't feel the need to touch myself for another week.”
Between his dirty mouth and his tight ass, I wasn't sure how much longer I could make it, but somehow I needed to hear the rest. “So what did you do?”
“You told me to get on the floor on all fours. I didn't want to miss out, so I did, and I arched my back and spread my legs just to tease you. The next thing I knew, you were behind me, biting me and growling, and then I felt you pushing into me.” He licked his lips, then shuddered as I found his spot again and stroked it.
“What happened next?” I asked, urging him on.
He smiled then. “That's around the time I heard you come back, so I had to get out of the shower to make sure it wasn't someone breaking in.”
“You little tease,” I muttered, pulling my hands free, and feeling my cock twitch at Renji's disappointed noise. I fumbled the condom on and somehow managed to lube myself up with shaking hands, feeling like I was a teenager again.
“Yeah, fuck me, Ichigo,” Renji said, low and promising, and I could feel him wrapping his legs around me as I moved closer.
I felt like all the breath was sucked out of me as I eased into him, especially as I listened to the cries he made as I did. I really hadn't expected Renji to be so vocal during all the times I'd thought about (OK, to be honest, fantasized about) this, and I found myself even more surprised that it was a total turn-on. Of course, the fact that I was now buried about as deep in Renji as I could be was keeping me on edge as much as his wanton moans in my ear. After a few moments, he opened his eyes halfway, his expression a little annoyed. “Hey you could move, you know, I'm not going to break.”
“Yeah, I know,” I mumbled, trying to get myself together enough to move without coming immediately, while he chuckled in my ear.
“Been a long time has it?” he whispered, leaning in.
“You know it has,” I responded, leaning away from him a little as I thrust in quickly, getting a groan from him that seemed to run right up my spine.
“It's a shame,” he replied, his voice low and breathless as he leaned in to kiss me. “All this talent gone to waste.”
He was clutching at me then, and I knew I was holding on to him too tightly, but I couldn't stop as I buried my face into his hair, my hips seeming to move by themselves to draw even more delicious noises out of Renji. He was loud, but I wanted to make him louder. I wanted him to feel it, how good he'd always make me feel, how good he'd feel when he finally let go, and one look at the mischief, lust, and pleasure on his face made me want to wind him up so high that it would take him a while to come back down, so somehow I made myself pull back and slow down a bit. I could see the disapproval on Renji's face, but he was still too out of breath to comment on it.
“You look really good like this, Renji,” I said, trying to make it sound slow and liquid, but with the way my heart was trying to beat its way out of my chest, I was probably just lucky he could hear me at all.
“Fuck you,” he replied, still mostly out of breath and slightly flushed, and I swear I just wanted to lick that slightly defiant but mostly turned on expression off his face.
“Oh, you will. I can't wait to see how good you look when you're riding my cock,” I said with a smirk, trying to keep his attention away from how I kept slightly changing the angle of my hips, trying to get just the right sound out of him...
I had to hold him down, finally, when I found the right spot. He was so loud and wild when I did that the feeling just ran right down my spine, and the sight of all that tattooed skin spread out under me, his red shock of hair spread out all around him, and the way he was holding on to me as if I was his last support before he got swept away drew me right into all that wildness. I didn't want to hold on anymore, I wanted to shove us both over the edge.
I leaned in further to lick and bite down on his neck just the way I knew he liked, pulled him close and fucked him just the way his breathless moans were begging me to. Once I was thrusting into him as hard as he liked and we were pressing so close I could feel his cock moving between the two of us, slick and hot and pulsing, I could feel my own control starting to slip away as I heard him cry out again. I'd just looked up to see his face when I felt him come between the two of us. Just the fact that it was him, and that he was coming for me while I was inside him, was almost enough, but when I saw the expression on his face when he came, all heat and pleasure with an edge of bliss, I couldn't help but follow.
Fortunately, I didn’t collapse into a heap afterwards, but my arms were trembling enough to almost give out when I really came back to myself. I realized I wasn't as far gone as Renji as I found something to clean him up with, but once I started looking at him it was hard to stop. Of course, his strong, gorgeous body held my gaze, his fascinating tattoos, and the long red hair thrown out behind him, but what kept my attention were his eyes. Slightly unfocused still, but the heat in them drew me in as I watched him, and I found myself seeing all of the things I'd found in there before, like the kindness when he brought food for my usually empty refrigerator and the care he showed when he held me late at night, when I could pretend I was asleep and not let him know how much I liked it. I found myself remembering all of the other little things he'd done for me, the times he'd reached out to me, included me, helped me when he didn't have to, looked out for me, and the way he'd made my friends love him the first time they met him, and how he made me...well... I'm going to have to figure out how to do whatever it takes to keep him with me, I finally realized, and instead of the thought feeling strange, somehow it seemed like the last puzzle piece had fallen into place.
I smiled as he stirred. “I figured maybe you were out for the night,” I teased, having a look at the bandage on his shoulder. No blood showed through, and when I lifted up a corner to peek, it seemed as if all the stitches were still in place.
“You're not that good,” Renji replied, but I could see him trying not to grin until it turned into a yawn.
I watched him for a moment, until I was satisfied that it seemed like he was going to remain awake for a little while. “How do you feel?” I asked, trying to ease myself into what I actually wanted to say.
He threw his good arm back and stretched his gorgeous tattooed body as he looked at me. “Pretty good,” he finally said, and something about his expression told me that he'd figured out that I had something to talk about and he was waiting for me to come out with it.
Mentally urging myself to just jump into the topic, I began. “I've been meaning to ask you something, Renji.” I almost cringed at the words; did it count if I'd really been seriously thinking about it only for the past few minutes?
“So go on,” he said, and my brief glance at his face showed dark eyes with an expression that was hard to decipher.
“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to move in here with me.” The words tumbled out of my mouth in a rush, and when I finished, I couldn't think of one more thing to add to make it sound less abrupt or disconnected to anything we'd been discussing up until now. I finally chanced a look over at Renji and I could feel something in my chest warm at the look of surprised pleasure he was giving me, at least until a suspicious expression overtook the rest.
“What brought this on, all of a sudden?” he asked, and suddenly I found myself mentally scrambling to come up with an explanation that didn't sound too ridiculous
Finally, I gave a little sigh and tried to just explain how it all came about, while not mentioning the embarrassing epiphany Tatsuki had forced upon me. “Over the past couple of days, I guess, but especially today, I just realized how much I want you with me.” Cringing at how lame that probably sounded, I continued. “You don't have to make up your mind right away or anything, but-”
“All right, I'll move in with you,” Renji's voice interrupted mine, and I couldn't help but stare stupidly at him for a minute while he smirked at me. “If you were going to say that you wanted to keep me here so you could protect me,” he explained, “I was going to have to punch you in the face, but I liked what you had to say a lot more.”
His tone was low and teasing by the time he finished, and I knew I was blushing. “Bastard,” I muttered, more embarrassed than angry.
“Oh, come on, don't be like that,” he replied, pulling me close with his good arm.
I switched off the bedside lamp and settled in beside him. “I was thinking we should take off a couple of days and go somewhere, with what I just earned on this contract, but now I'm thinking we should probably spend that time cleaning out your old place and moving you in here. Which reminds me, Shuu said he wanted a call right away when you got back,” I said, making a move to get out of bed, but Renji pulled me in tighter.
“I'll take care of it in the morning,” he told me. “Trust me, it'll be worse to wake him up in the middle of the night.”
I nodded against his shoulder and threw an arm around his chest, suddenly unafraid to hold onto him, and I felt Renji chuckle under my grip. I realized we still had a lot of details to settle and I had plenty of unfinished business to be taken care of in the next few days, but somehow at that moment I felt light, much lighter than I had in a long time, so I closed my eyes and relaxed, silently thanking everything that had helped us come to this moment as I slipped off into sleep.
Click here for Chapter 5, part 1
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As always, comments about what you liked and what you thought could be improved would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading!
-WriterX