Naruto Fic: Lords and Ladies, Chapter 4 (Itachi/Hinata, Sasuke/Hinata, Cast)
I'm putting this chapter up a little sooner than expected but I've got something to celebrate. Thanks to the magic of Jewish holidays, I've got two whole weeks of school off, which makes me incandescently giddy with glee. Life is good and gave me just enough time and inspiration to finish this chapter early. ♥
Admittedly, this chapter does have a major about-face in terms of tone as compared to earlier, more explicitly comic chapters. But Itachi does have a rather interesting sense of humor and I had a ridiculously good time penning Hinata's show-down with him. As adorable as she and Sasuke are together, I have a feeling that Itachi/Hinata is turning into my evil OTP...
And thanks again goes to all the kind people who have been reading and reviewing so far. I'm still in a state of grateful shock over how many reviews I received for the last chapter! Thank you so much for being such a wonderful audience and I hope this chapter lives up to my previous teasing. ;)
Title: Lords and Ladies, Chapter 4
Fandom: Naruto
Series: Lords and Ladies
Characters/Pairings: Itachi/Hinata, Sasuke/Hinata/Gaara, Cast
Rating: R
Summary: Hinata had expected that her life would change after being married to Sasuke in a sham marriage meant to throw off the chains of their respective families. But she had no idea that the greatest of worries was only now coming...
Note: This chapter features a few traces of a dubiously consenting sexual situation. There's nothing graphic, but please tread lightly if it's a personal trigger.
***
Once upon a time, when she had been sixteen, and her body had been given over to his spider hands, so very gently and patiently.
***
"I've-- I've never felt this way before, my lord. Not about anybody. As though every time I look at him, I'm simply-- simply gazing into the heart of the light. Looking. And waiting. And hoping."
"Those are strong words of fidelity indeed, princess. But not uncommon, not at your age. I do not feel inclined to allow you to worry, not when it shall fade eventually."
"No, n-not this. Not so easily. Do you really feel as though s-something like *this* could mean so little, be so-- so shallow? When to comes to a girl of my-- my feeling?"
"You may label yourself a woman now, I suppose, if you truly feel so deeply. But though I take a certain... joy in your happiness now, I remain puzzled as to why you confide in me."
"Because... because I wanted to tell someone. And you're a f-friend. A good friend. And I-- I would greatly appreciate your... your help here."
***
He was still looking at her now, as she raised a hand slick with blood to her trembling lips, as though ashamed of something.
***
"Are you sure? Truly sure? Do you know what you're entrusting to me?"
"P-please, my lord. Please think of as a-- a sign of my trust in you. My g-gratitude. And my humble way of begging for your h-help here."
"...Then if we do this, will you at least cease to call me 'my lord'? On your lips it falls so unnaturally."
"I... then what would you have me call you, d-dear sir?"
"I've know you from your birth, princess, and our families are already intertwined neatly. I believe my name would be appropriate now. So please, call me--"
***
The past was the past and the present was the present and he was no Naruto: nothing she wished to hold on to, nothing worth remembering.
***
"Can you feel that, princess? It's the beat of my heart. When there's nothing left between us, you can hear it so clearly."
"I-I-I'm glad we're d-doing this, I-Itachi. Otherwise, I-I would never have so easily l-learned my basic anatomy."
"Do you know that when you stutter and try to make me laugh at the same time, you're sound so ridiculously endearing?"
"N-nobody ever t-told me that before. But I-I had the feeling."
***
He used to take her breath away and did so even now. As though she were drowning in the reservoir of her lungs, slowly losing everything.
***
"You're not nearly as much of an insipid and humorless innocent as I thought you were, Hinata. And nowhere near as timid either."
"N-no, I am. At least, I have my m-moments. But I-I can be brave too... when I need to be."
***
In the present, she picked out the slivers of glass embedded in her shaking hand with grim and quiet efficiency.
***
"You needn't worry about stuttering, fair lady. You need not even speak to me. Simply close your eyes and let me touch you. I will give what you seek."
***
And now, there was nothing she wanted to say yet so she said nothing at all, keeping her eyes away from his as she stared down at her body bleeding. And he in turn simply reclined and watched her, his dangerous eyes hooded and his unearthly face absolutely still, as though it would take much too much effort to stand up or speak or piece together a woman he had once again torn apart cleanly.
Not that she expected him to. The Crown Prince of Konoha never did what he did not wish to do, and she had no illusions about influencing him here.
She spoke only when she turned away and began to heal herself with her bare knowledge of medicinal arts, only allowing her lips to tremble where she was sure he could not see. He was a prodigy and a prince and the pride of his house, but she knew there was at least one thing she could do that even his Sharingan could never hope to. She could see through flesh and bone in a way he couldn't dream of and though it was a cold comfort, it was enough to temporarily keep her on her feet.
And when she began to speak, her words so low and so smooth and so cold that it would have shocked everyone used to the sweet, prim, innocent blue blood she mimicked, to that woman who had a lawfully deflowered body and an untarnished soul and hands cleansed of all sin and cruely.
"W-why have you come here, Lord Itachi? Have we done anything in particular to m-merit your g-gracious presence currently?"
On the clean surface of that sentence, her words seemed all sweetness and light, all sparkling innocence and polite conformity. If a person did not know what Hinata was capable of-- and she made damn sure that few people knew what she was capable of-- they might have thought the sliver of insolence in that statement entered accidentally.
Judging from the wan smile that graced his face, Itachi wasn't fooled so easily. But then, he never had been. The sight his eyes boasted could have shamed members of her family.
"Good evening to you too," he dryly replied, though she could see a flicker of amusement rise in those dark Uchiha eyes, always laden with mystery. "I'm glad to see your time with my brother has already degraded your capacity for civilized speech. And I'm actually here for a surprise inspection. We in Clan Uchiha believe in efficiency and apparently, there's no better method for getting results than terrifying your members into productivity."
She stared at him for a very long, blank, almost hushed moment before realizing that this was what passed for a sense of humor for him. Keeping out of his way for the past few months had simply eroded her ability to recognize it.
Even so, she couldn't keep the shock out of her voice as she replied. "Efficiency? P-productivity? My lord, w-what exactly are we meant to be producing?"
And when he gave her a thin, wolfish, somehow terrifyingly tight smile in turn, Hinata remembered just why she had wanted to forget his way of teasing her in the first place. "That would be none other than the next generation of extraordinarily gifted Uchiha-Hyuuga hybrids, sister-in-law. Between my brother's latent capacities and your blood line, you had to know this day was coming. Or are you truly as naive as you appear to be, Lady Hinata? Do you really know so little of the matters of the flesh and the body?"
Without even knowing it, the hand that still had slivers of glass within it clenched against her thigh. She didn't even bother to cry out as it cut into her cleanly.
She didn't need this. She didn't deserve this. No matter what sort of whore he might believe her to be.
And when she turned away from him, ostensibly to look for bandages to bind her lacerated hand with, her knees felt on the edge of buckling. Her every movement thereafter left a fine film of blood upon her kimono, staining the hundred-year old fabric with marks that would never lift cleanly.
If she had been in the mood to be literary, she would have thought it symbolized something. But as it was, all she wanted to be away from him, away from this room, away from her past, away from her flesh, away from--
From everything he apparently took so much pleasure of insinuating.
"I am as well-bred as ever, Lord I-itachi," she finally replied, when she was quarter of the room away and her clean fingers were wrapped around cleaner dressings. "And you-- you needn't concern yourself too much about how Sasuke and I are-- are getting along. We've done w-well for ourselves, outside of the clan and our family compounds. You needn't think of us with such c-concern right now."
Now or hopefully ever. Because, gods, it was horrible enough that Sasuke and she had had to worry about their clans worming their way into their lives. But to know that Itachi--
She didn't want his particular brand of poison in her life, or in Sasuke's life. They had both suffered enough from it already.
"Not that you ever have," she whispered, half-hoping he would not hear and even more that he would, wounded enough to be daring. "You w-wouldn't do the things that you-- you always do if you knew... knew what it did to us here."
And why should he? Itachi had always been able to fashion wings and fly where he willed.
He had never seemed to once give a thought to who he had left behind and discarded, year after year after year.
So consumed was she with her thoughts, and so buried in her own misery, that she missed the sound of his footsteps coming towards her until it was too late to react. Until it was too late to cry out for servants. Until it was too late to do anything but stand stock still, her fingers still frozen in the act of bandaging her wounds, eyes wide and skin prickling
***
"I didn't hurt you, did I, princess? I did not mean to be a brute but possibly--"
***
at the feel of his fingertips on her skin once more,
***
"No. No, you didn't hurt me. I... it was wonderful. Truly wonderful. T-thank you for doing this for me..."
***
the grain of the ridges there, and the edges of his nails,
***
"I'm glad you enjoyed this. I wanted this experience to be... thoroughly pleasant, beyond anything."
***
familiar and tender and almost terrible
***
"I-it was. I almost... I mean... i-if our l-lives were different... If I d-didn't love N-Naruto so dearly..."
***
as he caressed her from the nape of her neck down the curve of her spine
***
"Then let us do this again, Hinata. No hesitations. No reservations. Not when there is so much else for you to learn to beguile the man you wish to love openly.
***
as though he had traveled down that path a thousand times and
***
"I-I-- L-lord Itachi! I'm not sure I-I-- I'm not sure! I mean-- I-- I wouldn't want to c-consume more of your time. This was m-meant to be-- I thought-- this would only be--"
***
found himself hungry and eager and willing once more
***
"Ah, Hinata. I could do this with you on a thousand more occasions. And if you would only allow me to, I could teach you how to bewitch anybody."
***
to make that slow, devoted journey.
***
"A-anybody?"
"Anybody."
***
He was tracing a simulacrum of the Uchiha fan into the tender skin of her neck, she realized, the knowledge seeping into her slowly. As though he were marking her for something grander than what she already had here.
***
"...Yes, then, Itachi. Please."
***
"I don't know," he began to say, and his voice was soft and languid and almost melancholy. "I don't know how you could say that of me, Hinata-- regardless of what I have done to you, who I am and who I could be. Whatever other sins tarnish my soul, surely indifference does not rank among them easily. You may call me a bastard, a brute and a beguiler-- these insults I accept freely. But whatever other names you may label me, you cannot possibly call me liar. Such a falsehood would be unseemly."
This close to her, at this angle, he could snap her thin little neck quickly. She could feel his powerful hands flexing against her, memorizing her, tightening and relaxing against her in rhythmic waves, as though to soothe her away from something.
Her eyes fluttered shut, once, twice. And then she opened them resolutely.
"I-I know that, my lord. And I-I would t-thoroughly agree. You simply have a-- a gift for convincing gullible p-people that they heard that you would h-help them, when truly, you p-promised no such thing."
She braced herself for a firm hand on her neck, for a sharp crack. For whatever else might come for her eventually.
But instead he laughed in a sound he shad never heard from his pale lips before-- a sound that was curious and hollow and low, somehow empty of all feeling.
And after it was over, his fingers remained upon her body. She had perhaps been praying for him to-- she had been praying for him to pull away. To keep his hands to himself, to withdraw from her completely.
But he kept on her as though mesmerized, as though seeing some fascinating pattern resolve against the snow-white trail of her skin , around the contrast of her aristocratic features and her suddenly knock-kneed bearing. Even after her insult, he still clung to her-- a few curious digits tracing the trembling line of her jaw and a thumb stroking the vulnerable hollow her throat, slowly and carefully.
And then there was another hand gently pulling down the back of her kimono. As though she had invited him to already. As though to reveal something unexpected about her body.
She should say something. He would stop if she said something. He was not so far gone as to force himself on her or any other woman. Not given what she had freely shared with him before and what she had done to become his family.
Not now. Not here.
She opened her lips and the words curled at the base of her suddenly dumb mouth as her incandescent eyes went wide.
This wasn't right. This wasn't her.
Surely she couldn't want what was now happening.
"I am glad to know that whatever else has happened," he whispered, "you retain your opinions so fiercely."
She let her eyes flutter close at that, as his breath brushed the lobe of her ear. Even as he slowly continued to undress her, she would not face him; she would keep at least this much dignity. And when she answered, she did it softly, but with a voice laden with real feeling.
"M-my lord, I have not been broken yet by the world. And what eighteen years under my f-father's thumb could not do, you will not accomplish so-- easily. So if this is why you came here-- if-if you had some wish to see me suffer again and-- and again--"
If you came here to tempt me...
And where there had been merely fingers, there was now the soft edge of his nose and his even softer lips, his profile pressed between her bare shoulder-blades, as though her she had suddenly promised him something. "Why would you think I want that, Hinata? Do you think I revel in feeling you tremble as though frightened against me? In seeing shame sweep across your face? In knowing that if you suffer, I have been one of the principal causes of it? Do you believe me capable of such depravity?"
He sounded so genuinely confused as he whispered those questions, as his words eventually broke into a slow trail of tender caresses down her spine, marking her once more with feel of his mouth, of his slow precision and beauty. Every kiss he pressed to her came with the sting of his teeth, and every sting with the lash of his tongue and lip, as though to punish her something. And in turn, she held onto the wall before her with her nails and told herself that she did not want this, that she had never truly wanted this, that she could prove both her memory and her body were wrong, that she was not reacting--
And waited until he had pressed his cheek almost childishly to her, as vulnerable as he had ever shown her, to move on to what she needed to swiftly.
"Because," she whispered, and her hands were suddenly blurring before her body, her her blood-line limit suddenly trembled in a spider-web of veins, power and pale-fire, all the barriers of the world falling before her invincible eyes, the true tendons of all forms revealed--
She felt, more than heard, his breath quicken with anticipation as he took her stance in, as his fingers traced her back possessively.
"Because you tried it on me before, my lord and I-- I don't forgive so easily!"
***
Author's Note: As always, comments, questions and constructive criticism are always very much loved. I've been bowled over by how many people are enjoying this story so far and believe me, it's really spurring me on in updating this. Four chapters in less than three weeks is a new record for me! Thanks to my readers once again for all their support and I hope you keep reviewing and letting me know how you feel. ;)
(The following section has a few spoilers about latest Naruto manga chapters regarding Itachi's characterization and the Uchiha massacre.)
Also, I had some questions to ask about the Itachi/Hinata interaction in this fic. I originally didn't think Itachi was going to play such a prominent role in this fic but he ended up taking over a large chunk of screen time. Mostly, I loved reading the latest manga chapters on Itachi and finding out why the real reasons behind the Uchiha massacre. And when I learned that he wasn't so much a psychopath as a tragic figure who had to sacrifice his own family for the sake of peace, I fell in love with his character. Therefore, I'm now trying to write the Itachi in this AU in much the same way and have a few questions for my readers.
1) Do you like/are interested in this version of Itachi? You're not getting the full story on him but I'm trying to hint about the reasons why he became Hinata's first lover...
2) Do you think Hinata and Itachi have chemistry together? Would you like to see them together more often? Should I incorporate him more in the story?
I'm a cross-roads about whether this story should contain more or less of Itachi, possibly delaying Gaara's entrance and Sasuke's various levels of... Sasucocity. I'd love to have your opinion, though if you'd like to skip over the questions entirely, please feel free. ;)
Admittedly, this chapter does have a major about-face in terms of tone as compared to earlier, more explicitly comic chapters. But Itachi does have a rather interesting sense of humor and I had a ridiculously good time penning Hinata's show-down with him. As adorable as she and Sasuke are together, I have a feeling that Itachi/Hinata is turning into my evil OTP...
And thanks again goes to all the kind people who have been reading and reviewing so far. I'm still in a state of grateful shock over how many reviews I received for the last chapter! Thank you so much for being such a wonderful audience and I hope this chapter lives up to my previous teasing. ;)
Title: Lords and Ladies, Chapter 4
Fandom: Naruto
Series: Lords and Ladies
Characters/Pairings: Itachi/Hinata, Sasuke/Hinata/Gaara, Cast
Rating: R
Summary: Hinata had expected that her life would change after being married to Sasuke in a sham marriage meant to throw off the chains of their respective families. But she had no idea that the greatest of worries was only now coming...
Note: This chapter features a few traces of a dubiously consenting sexual situation. There's nothing graphic, but please tread lightly if it's a personal trigger.
***
Once upon a time, when she had been sixteen, and her body had been given over to his spider hands, so very gently and patiently.
***
"I've-- I've never felt this way before, my lord. Not about anybody. As though every time I look at him, I'm simply-- simply gazing into the heart of the light. Looking. And waiting. And hoping."
"Those are strong words of fidelity indeed, princess. But not uncommon, not at your age. I do not feel inclined to allow you to worry, not when it shall fade eventually."
"No, n-not this. Not so easily. Do you really feel as though s-something like *this* could mean so little, be so-- so shallow? When to comes to a girl of my-- my feeling?"
"You may label yourself a woman now, I suppose, if you truly feel so deeply. But though I take a certain... joy in your happiness now, I remain puzzled as to why you confide in me."
"Because... because I wanted to tell someone. And you're a f-friend. A good friend. And I-- I would greatly appreciate your... your help here."
***
He was still looking at her now, as she raised a hand slick with blood to her trembling lips, as though ashamed of something.
***
"Are you sure? Truly sure? Do you know what you're entrusting to me?"
"P-please, my lord. Please think of as a-- a sign of my trust in you. My g-gratitude. And my humble way of begging for your h-help here."
"...Then if we do this, will you at least cease to call me 'my lord'? On your lips it falls so unnaturally."
"I... then what would you have me call you, d-dear sir?"
"I've know you from your birth, princess, and our families are already intertwined neatly. I believe my name would be appropriate now. So please, call me--"
***
The past was the past and the present was the present and he was no Naruto: nothing she wished to hold on to, nothing worth remembering.
***
"Can you feel that, princess? It's the beat of my heart. When there's nothing left between us, you can hear it so clearly."
"I-I-I'm glad we're d-doing this, I-Itachi. Otherwise, I-I would never have so easily l-learned my basic anatomy."
"Do you know that when you stutter and try to make me laugh at the same time, you're sound so ridiculously endearing?"
"N-nobody ever t-told me that before. But I-I had the feeling."
***
He used to take her breath away and did so even now. As though she were drowning in the reservoir of her lungs, slowly losing everything.
***
"You're not nearly as much of an insipid and humorless innocent as I thought you were, Hinata. And nowhere near as timid either."
"N-no, I am. At least, I have my m-moments. But I-I can be brave too... when I need to be."
***
In the present, she picked out the slivers of glass embedded in her shaking hand with grim and quiet efficiency.
***
"You needn't worry about stuttering, fair lady. You need not even speak to me. Simply close your eyes and let me touch you. I will give what you seek."
***
And now, there was nothing she wanted to say yet so she said nothing at all, keeping her eyes away from his as she stared down at her body bleeding. And he in turn simply reclined and watched her, his dangerous eyes hooded and his unearthly face absolutely still, as though it would take much too much effort to stand up or speak or piece together a woman he had once again torn apart cleanly.
Not that she expected him to. The Crown Prince of Konoha never did what he did not wish to do, and she had no illusions about influencing him here.
She spoke only when she turned away and began to heal herself with her bare knowledge of medicinal arts, only allowing her lips to tremble where she was sure he could not see. He was a prodigy and a prince and the pride of his house, but she knew there was at least one thing she could do that even his Sharingan could never hope to. She could see through flesh and bone in a way he couldn't dream of and though it was a cold comfort, it was enough to temporarily keep her on her feet.
And when she began to speak, her words so low and so smooth and so cold that it would have shocked everyone used to the sweet, prim, innocent blue blood she mimicked, to that woman who had a lawfully deflowered body and an untarnished soul and hands cleansed of all sin and cruely.
"W-why have you come here, Lord Itachi? Have we done anything in particular to m-merit your g-gracious presence currently?"
On the clean surface of that sentence, her words seemed all sweetness and light, all sparkling innocence and polite conformity. If a person did not know what Hinata was capable of-- and she made damn sure that few people knew what she was capable of-- they might have thought the sliver of insolence in that statement entered accidentally.
Judging from the wan smile that graced his face, Itachi wasn't fooled so easily. But then, he never had been. The sight his eyes boasted could have shamed members of her family.
"Good evening to you too," he dryly replied, though she could see a flicker of amusement rise in those dark Uchiha eyes, always laden with mystery. "I'm glad to see your time with my brother has already degraded your capacity for civilized speech. And I'm actually here for a surprise inspection. We in Clan Uchiha believe in efficiency and apparently, there's no better method for getting results than terrifying your members into productivity."
She stared at him for a very long, blank, almost hushed moment before realizing that this was what passed for a sense of humor for him. Keeping out of his way for the past few months had simply eroded her ability to recognize it.
Even so, she couldn't keep the shock out of her voice as she replied. "Efficiency? P-productivity? My lord, w-what exactly are we meant to be producing?"
And when he gave her a thin, wolfish, somehow terrifyingly tight smile in turn, Hinata remembered just why she had wanted to forget his way of teasing her in the first place. "That would be none other than the next generation of extraordinarily gifted Uchiha-Hyuuga hybrids, sister-in-law. Between my brother's latent capacities and your blood line, you had to know this day was coming. Or are you truly as naive as you appear to be, Lady Hinata? Do you really know so little of the matters of the flesh and the body?"
Without even knowing it, the hand that still had slivers of glass within it clenched against her thigh. She didn't even bother to cry out as it cut into her cleanly.
She didn't need this. She didn't deserve this. No matter what sort of whore he might believe her to be.
And when she turned away from him, ostensibly to look for bandages to bind her lacerated hand with, her knees felt on the edge of buckling. Her every movement thereafter left a fine film of blood upon her kimono, staining the hundred-year old fabric with marks that would never lift cleanly.
If she had been in the mood to be literary, she would have thought it symbolized something. But as it was, all she wanted to be away from him, away from this room, away from her past, away from her flesh, away from--
From everything he apparently took so much pleasure of insinuating.
"I am as well-bred as ever, Lord I-itachi," she finally replied, when she was quarter of the room away and her clean fingers were wrapped around cleaner dressings. "And you-- you needn't concern yourself too much about how Sasuke and I are-- are getting along. We've done w-well for ourselves, outside of the clan and our family compounds. You needn't think of us with such c-concern right now."
Now or hopefully ever. Because, gods, it was horrible enough that Sasuke and she had had to worry about their clans worming their way into their lives. But to know that Itachi--
She didn't want his particular brand of poison in her life, or in Sasuke's life. They had both suffered enough from it already.
"Not that you ever have," she whispered, half-hoping he would not hear and even more that he would, wounded enough to be daring. "You w-wouldn't do the things that you-- you always do if you knew... knew what it did to us here."
And why should he? Itachi had always been able to fashion wings and fly where he willed.
He had never seemed to once give a thought to who he had left behind and discarded, year after year after year.
So consumed was she with her thoughts, and so buried in her own misery, that she missed the sound of his footsteps coming towards her until it was too late to react. Until it was too late to cry out for servants. Until it was too late to do anything but stand stock still, her fingers still frozen in the act of bandaging her wounds, eyes wide and skin prickling
***
"I didn't hurt you, did I, princess? I did not mean to be a brute but possibly--"
***
at the feel of his fingertips on her skin once more,
***
"No. No, you didn't hurt me. I... it was wonderful. Truly wonderful. T-thank you for doing this for me..."
***
the grain of the ridges there, and the edges of his nails,
***
"I'm glad you enjoyed this. I wanted this experience to be... thoroughly pleasant, beyond anything."
***
familiar and tender and almost terrible
***
"I-it was. I almost... I mean... i-if our l-lives were different... If I d-didn't love N-Naruto so dearly..."
***
as he caressed her from the nape of her neck down the curve of her spine
***
"Then let us do this again, Hinata. No hesitations. No reservations. Not when there is so much else for you to learn to beguile the man you wish to love openly.
***
as though he had traveled down that path a thousand times and
***
"I-I-- L-lord Itachi! I'm not sure I-I-- I'm not sure! I mean-- I-- I wouldn't want to c-consume more of your time. This was m-meant to be-- I thought-- this would only be--"
***
found himself hungry and eager and willing once more
***
"Ah, Hinata. I could do this with you on a thousand more occasions. And if you would only allow me to, I could teach you how to bewitch anybody."
***
to make that slow, devoted journey.
***
"A-anybody?"
"Anybody."
***
He was tracing a simulacrum of the Uchiha fan into the tender skin of her neck, she realized, the knowledge seeping into her slowly. As though he were marking her for something grander than what she already had here.
***
"...Yes, then, Itachi. Please."
***
"I don't know," he began to say, and his voice was soft and languid and almost melancholy. "I don't know how you could say that of me, Hinata-- regardless of what I have done to you, who I am and who I could be. Whatever other sins tarnish my soul, surely indifference does not rank among them easily. You may call me a bastard, a brute and a beguiler-- these insults I accept freely. But whatever other names you may label me, you cannot possibly call me liar. Such a falsehood would be unseemly."
This close to her, at this angle, he could snap her thin little neck quickly. She could feel his powerful hands flexing against her, memorizing her, tightening and relaxing against her in rhythmic waves, as though to soothe her away from something.
Her eyes fluttered shut, once, twice. And then she opened them resolutely.
"I-I know that, my lord. And I-I would t-thoroughly agree. You simply have a-- a gift for convincing gullible p-people that they heard that you would h-help them, when truly, you p-promised no such thing."
She braced herself for a firm hand on her neck, for a sharp crack. For whatever else might come for her eventually.
But instead he laughed in a sound he shad never heard from his pale lips before-- a sound that was curious and hollow and low, somehow empty of all feeling.
And after it was over, his fingers remained upon her body. She had perhaps been praying for him to-- she had been praying for him to pull away. To keep his hands to himself, to withdraw from her completely.
But he kept on her as though mesmerized, as though seeing some fascinating pattern resolve against the snow-white trail of her skin , around the contrast of her aristocratic features and her suddenly knock-kneed bearing. Even after her insult, he still clung to her-- a few curious digits tracing the trembling line of her jaw and a thumb stroking the vulnerable hollow her throat, slowly and carefully.
And then there was another hand gently pulling down the back of her kimono. As though she had invited him to already. As though to reveal something unexpected about her body.
She should say something. He would stop if she said something. He was not so far gone as to force himself on her or any other woman. Not given what she had freely shared with him before and what she had done to become his family.
Not now. Not here.
She opened her lips and the words curled at the base of her suddenly dumb mouth as her incandescent eyes went wide.
This wasn't right. This wasn't her.
Surely she couldn't want what was now happening.
"I am glad to know that whatever else has happened," he whispered, "you retain your opinions so fiercely."
She let her eyes flutter close at that, as his breath brushed the lobe of her ear. Even as he slowly continued to undress her, she would not face him; she would keep at least this much dignity. And when she answered, she did it softly, but with a voice laden with real feeling.
"M-my lord, I have not been broken yet by the world. And what eighteen years under my f-father's thumb could not do, you will not accomplish so-- easily. So if this is why you came here-- if-if you had some wish to see me suffer again and-- and again--"
If you came here to tempt me...
And where there had been merely fingers, there was now the soft edge of his nose and his even softer lips, his profile pressed between her bare shoulder-blades, as though her she had suddenly promised him something. "Why would you think I want that, Hinata? Do you think I revel in feeling you tremble as though frightened against me? In seeing shame sweep across your face? In knowing that if you suffer, I have been one of the principal causes of it? Do you believe me capable of such depravity?"
He sounded so genuinely confused as he whispered those questions, as his words eventually broke into a slow trail of tender caresses down her spine, marking her once more with feel of his mouth, of his slow precision and beauty. Every kiss he pressed to her came with the sting of his teeth, and every sting with the lash of his tongue and lip, as though to punish her something. And in turn, she held onto the wall before her with her nails and told herself that she did not want this, that she had never truly wanted this, that she could prove both her memory and her body were wrong, that she was not reacting--
And waited until he had pressed his cheek almost childishly to her, as vulnerable as he had ever shown her, to move on to what she needed to swiftly.
"Because," she whispered, and her hands were suddenly blurring before her body, her her blood-line limit suddenly trembled in a spider-web of veins, power and pale-fire, all the barriers of the world falling before her invincible eyes, the true tendons of all forms revealed--
She felt, more than heard, his breath quicken with anticipation as he took her stance in, as his fingers traced her back possessively.
"Because you tried it on me before, my lord and I-- I don't forgive so easily!"
***
Author's Note: As always, comments, questions and constructive criticism are always very much loved. I've been bowled over by how many people are enjoying this story so far and believe me, it's really spurring me on in updating this. Four chapters in less than three weeks is a new record for me! Thanks to my readers once again for all their support and I hope you keep reviewing and letting me know how you feel. ;)
(The following section has a few spoilers about latest Naruto manga chapters regarding Itachi's characterization and the Uchiha massacre.)
Also, I had some questions to ask about the Itachi/Hinata interaction in this fic. I originally didn't think Itachi was going to play such a prominent role in this fic but he ended up taking over a large chunk of screen time. Mostly, I loved reading the latest manga chapters on Itachi and finding out why the real reasons behind the Uchiha massacre. And when I learned that he wasn't so much a psychopath as a tragic figure who had to sacrifice his own family for the sake of peace, I fell in love with his character. Therefore, I'm now trying to write the Itachi in this AU in much the same way and have a few questions for my readers.
1) Do you like/are interested in this version of Itachi? You're not getting the full story on him but I'm trying to hint about the reasons why he became Hinata's first lover...
2) Do you think Hinata and Itachi have chemistry together? Would you like to see them together more often? Should I incorporate him more in the story?
I'm a cross-roads about whether this story should contain more or less of Itachi, possibly delaying Gaara's entrance and Sasuke's various levels of... Sasucocity. I'd love to have your opinion, though if you'd like to skip over the questions entirely, please feel free. ;)