FIC: Forsaken (Bleach, HitsuMatsu)
Final entry from Church of Lemons 2009! As I explain below, I originally had a much longer story in mind - this takes place about three-quarters of the way through - but I've currently lost the enthusiasm for it. I may very well pick it up again later, but in the meantime, I think this tracks pretty well on it's own. I'm actually kind of proud of myself for this one; I think I managed to keep Hitsugaya and Matsumoto in-character while transferring them to the modern world, AND keep the essential character of their relationship, despite the changed circumstances.
TITLE: Forsaken
AUTHOR: TaleWeaver
DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine, they belong to Kubo Tite.
FANDOM / PAIRING: Bleach, Toushiro Hitsugaya/Rangiku Matsumoto. Off-screen references to several other relationships, including threesomes and yaoi.
RATING / CONTENT: NC-17. M/F sex, language
SPOILERS: character backgrounds, slightly adapted to fit the AU.
SUMMARY: modern-day AU. Rangiku Matsumoto gave up years of a happy, Sex in the City-style love life to build a family with her oldest friend and first lover. But when she discovers a shattering betrayal, will she forsake the only vows she’s ever taken to start over with a man who is everything she thought her husband was - and more? Even though he’s her teenage stepson…
AUTHOR’S NOTES: this is actually an extract from a much longer story (to be titled ‘What has been forsaken’) - as such, it’s filled with references to scenes that haven’t actually been written yet.
Toushiro is Gin’s son, conceived when he was a teenager himself. After Toushiro’s mother died, Toushiro was raised by his Granny, just like in canon, though they’re blood related here (Momo, by the way, is Toushiro’s first cousin, although they consider themselves siblings). Being a child prodigy, Toushiro won a full scholarship to Tokyo University at the age of 15, but his Granny wasn’t prepared to let him go so far away from home without some kind of support, so she made him a deal; he only gets to go to Tokyo U if he moves in with his father, who he’s met all of a dozen times in his life. Gin and Toushiro don’t get along very well (in the same way that canon Aizen is ‘a little ambitious’), as evidenced by the fact that Toushiro’s still using his mother’s name. Unable for various reasons to just dump him back on Granny, Gin gets the bright idea to persuade Rangiku to marry him - worst case scenario, she’ll at least be a buffer. Best case, she can work some diplomatic magic to make them into an actual family, which is something she wants more than anything. This takes place roughly a year after the ‘real’ story begins. Toushiro is 17, Rangiku is 31.
SOUNDTRACK: ‘St Clare’ by Suzanne Vega to open; when Rangiku gets the mail it switches to ‘All along the watchtower’ by Bear McCreary; and finally to ‘Amaranth’ by Nightwish, when Rangiku literally pushes Toushiro away.
Rangiku Matsumoto Ichimaru flopped onto her back on her living room couch, and sighed. She’d gotten herself into some messy situations over the years, but this one might very well top them all.
The truly ironic thing was that she’d done it by sheer accident, really.
Twisting and sitting up once more, in a swift, fluid movement that showed her years of kendo training, she reached out for the items on the coffee table. With the sake bottle in one hand, (this was a crisis, no time for cups) she used the other to settle the photo album on her lap and flip it open.
The very first page held her wedding portrait. Rangiku took a moment to smile at her expression on the page. She looked so dizzily in love that it was funny. What wasn’t so funny, was that Gin looked the same as always. Just that same wide grin that narrowed his eyes so drastically that you couldn’t see if the smile reached them. It hadn’t changed since they’d met in the orphanage, a full twenty-one years ago. She’d been barely ten years old, wary and scared, but already so very tired of being shunted from one relative to another that she’d been relieved to be put into state care. He’d been almost thirteen, so much older and wiser, who’d taken her under his wing for what seemed like nothing more than a whim. She was the only one that had seen his excruciatingly rare, softer smile that showed off those teal eyes of his. But he hadn’t shown it to her once on their wedding day.
Rangiku gulped down the sake thirstily, as she finally came to terms with the fact that he hadn’t shown it to her once over the entire year and three weeks that they’d been married. That was even worse than the fact that, apart from their wedding anniversary, he’d barely touched her hand, let alone anything more intimate, in over two months.
Not able to cope with those implications for the moment, Rangiku turned the page, seeking the reassurance that the next photo - and all the years worth of memories, compressed into one image - gave her. Rangiku could no more have stopped the smile that instantly broke out than she could have stopped breathing. There she was, surrounded by twelve men - her former lovers, who had stayed her dear friends.
Rangiku had never bragged about her past lovers, or about her ability to keep more than one man around at a time. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her past - not in the least! - but she didn’t see it as a particular accomplishment, either. It was just a by-product of the manner in which she’d chosen to live her life, up until her marriage. But the number of her lovers that had stayed her friends? Now THAT, in her book, was something to be proud of. In eighteen years of sexual activity, she’d had no less than twenty-five men on her ‘roster’, as she called it. They had stayed with her for various lengths of time, the shortest being three months, the longest six years. They’d come from very different walks of life, with personalities that ran from playful to ever-sombre, from Zen-like serenity to fighting against the very fabric of life, it seemed, but they’d all had two things in common. They’d all regarded her with respect, from the very first moment… and they’d all been men of quality. Not necessarily in social standing or bank account, but in soul.
When Gin had asked her to marry him, to build a family with him and the son that he’d fathered at sixteen and barely knew, she’d told him straight out that she wasn’t giving up her inner circle. She’d be faithful to him from that moment on, but she was not going to give up the satisfying and fulfilling friendships that she’d formed, simply because the majority of them had once shared her bed. Gin had agreed, and her friends had become even more precious to her, once she’d traded full-time work for telecommuting part-time (she couldn’t become a full-time housewife - she’d go nuts!).
So she still went out bar-crawling with Renji, Ikkaku, Ayasegawa and Shuuhei every Wednesday - although she always went home alone, now. She met Byakuya for lunch every week without fail. She had afternoon tea with Shuunsui and Jushiro every other Sunday, with Nanao joining them whenever she returned from her weekly visit with her parents. Keeping in touch with Kisuke had always been rather sporadic - usually, she just dropped by whenever she was in the neighbourhood; but that had actually become more frequent since her marriage, when she’d introduced his foster-children to her stepson, and they’d all wound up on the same neighbourhood soccer team. Komamura’s emails were irregular, but what could you expect from the African savannah? The lions weren’t going to delay forming the perfect widescreen shot for the sake of an internet uplink. Hanatoro and Ganju were still stuck in the South American jungles somewhere, giving medical treatment to natives and building bridges with the Peace Corps, but she got the occasional letter to assure her they were just fine, packaged with colourful handicrafts that she proudly displayed in the house, even though she wasn’t quite sure what most of them were.
But they’d all made it to her wedding, and watched her walk down the aisle with genuine smiles on their faces (well, except for Byakuya, but his face had definitely relaxed). Yes, she was happy with her friends. Too bad she couldn’t say the same thing about her husband - even though he was the man who’d been in her life the longest.
Groaning again, Rangiku dumped the photo album onto the table and took another long drink of sake. When she came up for air, the bottle was nearly empty - it didn’t mean much, not with her legendary tolerance, but it was probably a signal that it was time to stop wallowing and start thinking, dammit.
Placing the bottle on the floor, she lay back on the sofa - always her favourite thinking position - and let her mind drift back to a few hours ago.
Rangiku flipped through the playlists on her mp3 player, before settling on something slow and dreamy. Once she’d set it to repeat, she popped it in the speakers and set to work. First of all, she efficiently stripped off all her clothes, dropping them in a neat pile next to the stereo. Next, she knelt on the carpet and opened the custom-made, pink leather case, roughly the same size as a laptop bag. Inside was a truly astounding assortment of sex toys, courtesy of Kisuke. She had been the one to suggest he make an attempt to turn his kinky hobby into a legitimate side-business. “Cool Devices” was now one of the fastest-growing internet businesses in the sex industry. As a thank you, Kisuke had kept her on as a test driver for all the new toys, gifting her with free customised models of all the ones she liked.
Deciding she was in the mood for something simple (relatively speaking) she picked out a vibrator - it was actually the very first one he’d ever given her, back when he’d been teaching at her high school. Crawling languorously underneath the skylight, Rangiku sprawled out in the large square of sunlight that spread over the carpet, tucking a throw pillow from the couch beneath her head. She loved the feeling of light on her skin when she was in a sensuous mood - sunlight was her favourite, but she loved moonlight, firelight and candlelight too.
Lying back and opening her legs, she left the vibrator by her side for the moment and started to arouse herself with her hands. Lightly gliding her fingertips over her skin, she delighted in the trail of ripples that travelled through her flesh. Rangiku had learned early on that she was one of the rare women who was as easily aroused as a man, but that didn’t mean she skimped on the basics. Rangiku knew every one of her erogenous zones, and now paid proper attention to all of them. The song had cycled through twice before she reached for the wet folds between her legs, slowly rubbing the sensitised flesh, before reaching for the vibrator. Turning it on the lowest setting, she gently slid it back and forth between her nether lips, letting her own juices lubricate it slightly, before working the rounded tip inside her. Rubbing one of her nipples, twisting it gently like she was tuning an instrument, Rangiku gulped in a deep breath, throwing her head back against the throw pillow as she gently pushed the vibrator all the way in.
She lost track of time after that, lost in the pleasure - and yet unutterable loneliness - of satisfying herself. The brush of her own hands on her skin, knowing exactly what she liked best… but they were her own hands. She missed the tender feeling of the hands of someone who cared about her, who wanted to give her pleasure because they cared. There was really nothing like it in the world, and the sensations and tangible emotions of another person’s affection and consideration of her - simply put, the feeling of being loved - had always been her favourite part of sex.
Rangiku never knew what it was that brought her out of her semi-trance - a delayed reaction from her martial arts training, a distant memory of hearing the door slam - but she jerked as if someone had flicked her with ice water, her body suddenly but completely immobilized. Her head turned towards the doorway, and there stood a frozen Toushiro, still wearing his backpack and his face almost as pale as his hair.
Rangiku’s gaze flickered sideways to double-check the clock on the stereo. “You’re not due home for another hour, yet,” she panted. She wasn’t going to apologize, dammit. She was a woman with needs, and she had to right to service them! But her stepson shouldn’t be seeing her this way, either. “Just give me a minute, and I’ll get dressed and go upstairs.”
“Don’t bother,” came an imperturbable reply, “There’s no need to interrupt yourself on my account.”
Rangiku only saw his face for a moment before he ducked his head and dropped to one knee beside her, but she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of something unmistakeable in his turquoise eyes - not lust, but desire, the kind that’s reserved for someone very special in your life. It might have been because she was so intent on his eyes, that she didn’t see what his hands were doing. But she most definitely felt it, when he smoothly took hold of the base of her vibrator, and simultaneously managed to twist the vibrator so that the hook-shaped protrusion precisely rested on her clitoris, thrust it as deep inside her as it could go, and turned the vibration dial to the maximum.
Rangiku’s back arched, her body leaving the floor completely between her shoulders and backside, as her world disappeared in a swirl of white with technicolour edges, and nearly every nerve ending in her body sang in unison, as she was thrown headlong into the best orgasm she’d had since her wedding night.
When she came out of it, Toushiro was nowhere to be seen.
Rangiku had always prided herself on her lack of self-deception, and now was no time to start. Sighing, Rangiku forced herself to admit it. While the vibrator had been as enjoyable as always, what had sent her spinning in a blur of white light had been the brush of cool, gentle fingers against the overheated skin of her inner thigh. Not only that, but that look of desire had been in the back of his eyes for months now, smothered and banked to be imperceptible, but growing steadily.
“No! There is NO WAY this is going to become a hentai manga scenario!” Rangiku muttered furiously to herself.
But she didn’t think it was very smart to leave it like this, either. She needed to talk this out with Toushiro. Though was now really the best time? Perhaps it would be best to wait for the situation to cool down (and for Gin to get home, pointed out a corner of her mind), or would that only let things fester and grow worse?
The clunk of the mail-slot brought her out of her brooding, and she gave a sigh of relief as she went to the front door. Picking up the single item from the last mail of the day, she strolled back into the living room, draining the sake bottle in a single long swig, before slumping back on the couch and scrutinising the envelope. It was a long habit from the orphanage, to make sure you didn’t open anyone else’s mail by mistake. Privacy was a premium commodity in state care; fistfights and revenge schemes were far from unknown for such transgressions, even inadvertedly.
There wasn’t anything special about it, just an A3 size manila envelope with her name and address printed on a sticker on the front, with no return address. Shrugging, Rangiku ripped the envelope open, and a thick stack of photos dropped into her lap. Picking up the top picture, Rangiku’s eyebrows lifted, then came back down as she chuckled.
“Well, well, who’s a wicked boy, then?” she murmured to herself, as she tilted her head to get a better look.
The background was standard, bland, love hotel, which somehow managed to set off the two men in the bed perfectly. Even if Gin hadn’t been on top, something about the other man screamed ‘uke’ - not just the way his blond bangs completely hid one eye, or even that he was shorter and quite a bit slimmer than Gin. Maybe it was the way his entire body seemed to bow, as if burdened by a terrible weight.
Rangiku was a little annoyed that Gin hadn’t told her about this himself - it wasn’t as if she would have found it offensive or anything. On the other hand, there were things about her past sex life that she’d never told him about either, simply because it never came up. It was, however, perfectly obvious to Rangiku why he’d kept it secret. Tosen Kaname was blatantly homophobic - she’d almost thrown up in disgust at hearing his drunken rant at Aizen, Inc’s end of year party - and if he’d had any idea that Gin had done some switch-hitting, no matter how far in the past, Gin’s career would have been permanently stalled or outright ended, no matter how much damage that would have done to the company. Like most bigots, Tosen was blinded by his own ignorance.
While she’d seen far more blatant displays of yaoi before, Rangiku found herself mildly titillated as she flipped through the photos. About halfway through, the background changed to a far more richly decorated room, with what looked to be silk sheets.
“Hmmm, Valentine’s day?” Rangiku wondered…
…then looked at the date stamp at the bottom of the photo, and froze. Unable to take her eyes off the date, a distant part of her mind noted that there were at least a dozen more photos in the stack. Still frozen, she automatically kept paging through the images.
The last fifteen pictures were all dated after her wedding to Gin.
Rangiku’s eyes glazed over, gone glassy with shock. Moving with the slow, graceful movements of a sleepwalker, she dropped the photos on the coffee table, next to her wedding album. Her wedding ring followed, the glossy paper cushioning it and keeping the metal from chiming against the wood. Even as her longest-held, most secretly cherished dreams turned to ash and her heart crumbled, the fierce, deep-running appetite of her body, denied true satisfaction for so long, made its craving clear.
As she rose to her feet with slow, feline grace, the glaze seeped from her eyes, to be replaced by a fiery, hungry cunning that had only been seen by a selected few of her lovers - but not Gin. Never Gin.
It had been Kisuke, her second lover, who had nicknamed her the Hellcat - partly for the marks her nails left on his back, partly for the way she growled during particularly good sex and purred in the best afterglow. As her sensual appetites developed and grew - not just for sex, but for the taste of delicious food and drink, for the scent of flowers and perfume and healthy sweat, for the feel of silk and heat and coolness against her skin - Rangiku sometimes thought she could hear the Hellcat in her mind, as a separate entity. She could hear the growling in the back of her mind now, a black panther in mating heat and about to strike for the kill, and a feline smile curved her lips as she languidly made her way upstairs, where she silently opened the door she wanted and slipped inside.
Her normally preternaturally-aware stepson was oblivious to her entrance, fully absorbed in the manga he held and the music pouring into his ears. Rangiku’s eyes traced the white cord of his headphones to the mp3 player lying on the bedside table. She made an absent bet with herself that Nightwish was playing - he always liked listening to them when he read xxxHOLIC.
As she surveyed the lean figure sitting on the bed, the tip of her tongue flickered over her lips lingeringingly. Even in the deepest, most blinded times of her love for Gin, she could not truthfully admit that he was physically ideal. His body was well-muscled, but the broad shoulders and thick biceps were ever-so-slightly out of proportion with his torso - something about the shape of his frame spoke of beatings in dark alleys. The fox-like face that never, ever, let you see its true motives, the permanent squint that hid his lovely teal eyes. The silver hair that she’d always loved to run her fingers through was coarse to the touch - and he’d always hated the colour that she so admired. So what if he wasn’t gorgeous, her teenage self had thought - he was interesting, striking! Why had it taken this betrayal to realise that his looks were ‘interesting’ in the same way as an Escher print, or Seeing Eye picture?
His son, on the other hand, had all of his father’s highlights, and none of his flaws. For the first time in years she let herself wonder about the woman she’d hated from the very depths of her passionate adolescent heart, and what she’d looked like. Marvelled at how Aoi Hitsugaya’s genes had harmonised with Gin’s to form something extraordinary - not just the genius intellect and the grave, fierce heart, but physically as well. Toushiro was the same height as her, but his lean body was perfectly proportioned - the kendo classes she’d dragged him to as a bonding activity had added an inch to his shoulders, and refined his already-toned physique to a perfection that had women taking a second look in the street. The features that were just a little too sharp on Gin were sculpted on his offspring, with a beauty that was still infinitely male. The eyes that lost focus over physics equations, dreaming of a phenomenon or reaction that only he could comprehend, or sharpened with disturbing perception or hardened with implacable determination, were of an even deeper and more compelling shade of teal than his sire’s. The odd silver hue turned the pure white of ice, and even now Rangiku found the tufted crests that his thick hair naturally spiked into endearing. Gin’s hair was so fine that his face-framing crop was literally the only style he could manage.
Gin had married her so they could build a family, the three of them, but there was a very good reason she’d never even tried to make Toushiro call her ‘Mother’. Whether it was the responsibility of his extraordinary intelligence, or always being the ‘man of the house’ with a canny but fragile old woman, and a barely-older sister with her head permanently in the clouds, but Toushiro had already been a man when she met him. A very young man, but a man nonetheless.
She didn’t know what alerted Toushiro - had she unconsciously shifted her weight onto a creaking floorboard, or had her heart simply started pounding hard enough to be audible? - but his head twisted towards the door with startling swiftness. One look at her figure, lounging against the back of the closed door, and he knew exactly what she was there for. Her eyes locked with his, and that was all that was needed. Raw sexual chemistry ignited and blazed, the very air becoming hazy as the tension crackled between them like a storm about to break. Eyes never leaving hers, he slowly and deliberately plucked the headphones from his ears and placed them on the bedside table, along with the closed book. In a single fluid movement, he was off the bed and stalking towards her, a dragon locked onto its prey.
He slowly, deliberately fitted his body to hers, until they were pressed together tightly from chest to thigh, but leaving her arms free to move. His hands slid under her hair to cradle her jaw in one hand, and the back of her head in the other. He gazed into her eyes searchingly for a long moment, and only then did he kiss her, gently but thoroughly, his mouth scorching hers like a brand. Rangiku gasped, as her blood heated in her veins, and wrapped her arms around Toushiro’s lower back to keep him close. His lips parted in welcome for her tongue, and she gently teased his tongue with her own. He moaned into her mouth, and as her arms tightened around him, his hips began to rock against hers insistently. Rangiku could feel the hardness between his legs, so very close to where she needed it, and tried to shift her hips to get it there.
When they broke off the kiss for air, Toushiro’s mouth moved to her neck, planting gentle kisses up and down her throat, lingering and sucking tenderly on the place where her pulse pounded so hard it felt like it would burst through her skin. His hands moved to her hips, and Rangiku shifted her weight, widening her stance enough so his legs fit comfortably between hers. Her arms moved him into place, and Rangiku moaned, as his denim-covered erection rubbed the perfect spot. The wave of pleasure washed over her, and it was enough to clear her mind.
Rangiku’s eyes snapped open, wide in horror.
Sweet Kami in heaven, what was she DOING?
A stream of images flickered through her mind; Toushiro after they’d been sparring, gingerly rubbing the bruises she’d given him through the kendo padding, and giving her an admiring look. Toushiro rolling his eyes as he dried the dishes faster than she washed them. Toushiro chiding her for taking more than her fair share of the popcorn during their watch-and-mock Godzilla movie marathon. Toushiro’s amazed, grateful smile when he realized that she’d left lunch with Byakuya to come get Jinta out of trouble, simply because he had called her to ask for help. Toushiro coming to her for advice on birthday presents for Momo, Granny and Karin. Toushiro resignedly helping her to bed when she’d come back from a night out with the Fight club quartet so intoxicated she couldn’t make it up the stairs without tumbling down them. Toushiro insisting on taking charge of the presents when they went to Shuunsui and Nanao’s for Christmas lunch, so she wouldn’t forget any of the sake or food she’d promised to bring.
Toushiro was her friend, just as much as any of the men who were gathered around her in the photo she’d been looking at half an hour ago. Using him for sex was one thing - as long as he was happy with it - but using him for revenge? Fucking him simply because he was the one man she could take to her bed that would truly insult and wound Gin? Using him when she knew that the reason he was so self-controlled was that all the emotions he allowed himself to feel - joy, pain, triumph, sorrow - were all so intense they bordered on violent?
Rangiku didn’t treat her friends that way. The first vow Rangiku had ever taken had been to herself, and it meant that she could never treat anyone that way.
Toushiro’s hips thrust against her again, and Rangiku moaned, even as she flattened her palms on his chest and pushed him away.
“I’m sorry, please forgive me,” she pleaded, eyes watering with tears of self-recrimination she refused to shed. “Please forgive me for doing this to you.”
“You’re not doing anything to me that I don’t want,” he told her matter-of-factly, despite his tight grip on her hips and the prominent bulge in his jeans. “You’re not doing anything to me that I’m not enjoying very much.”
Another man might have tried to kiss her again, tried to tease her back into an amorous mood. Not Toushiro; he knew her better than that. Rangiku gulped in deep breaths of air to steady her pounding heart, and did her best to explain.
“When I was 14 years old, I only loved one person in the world. When I was 15, I found out that he had given a child to another woman, and my heart shattered so completely that I wished it would turn to ash. I vowed then that I would never break another person's heart. I can't use you like this. Not you, Toushiro."
"Then don't,” Toushiro told her, his voice tight with a need she recognised all too well. “Come to my bed because you want to. Make love with me because you've already given way too much of your life to a man who was never worthy of you, who's already discarded the vows you held as holy, and you have nothing left to keep you from a man who desires you so badly-” his voice cracked, like the adolescent she'd never known him to be. He swallowed hard, and his eyes turned the colour of the South China Sea.
“Nothing to keep you from a man who loves you, so much it burns.”
Rangiku’s breath stalled in her lungs for a long moment. She’d had men declare love for her before, but not like this - not from a man who never said anything he didn’t mean. Rangiku never took her eyes from his - from the truth shining in those cyan orbs - as she calmly reached out and started to unbutton his shirt. She never took her eyes from his as she unhooked his belt, undid his jeans, and his remaining clothing puddled around his bare feet. His hands were busy as well; the buttons on the outer shirt she was wearing gave way, and she felt the cloth slide off her shoulders. The zip and hook of her short skirt were within easy reach, and Toushiro sent her skirt to join the pile of garments already on the floor. He slid one arm around her back and crouched down just far enough to slide the other behind her knees, picking her up off the floor in one smooth movement before he carried her to the bed.
Gently depositing her on the dragon-emblazoned comforter, he stood up to slip off his boxers, before climbing onto the bed. Rangiku had already shed her stretchy camisole, and was busily unhooking her bra as he stretched out beside her, watching with something that looked like contentment in his eyes as she wriggled out of her bikini underwear (she didn’t care how sexy thongs were supposed to be, they were damn uncomfortable). Lying back down, she rolled onto her side so that they were face to face, and Toushiro reached out to draw her close.
As an extension of her vow, Rangiku remembered a certain conversation she’d had with Toushiro’s best friend last winter, in the bleachers of Tokyo U’s gym as he’d led the kendo team to victory. "Karin won't mind, will she?" Rangiku asked absently.
Toushiro gave a strangled chuckle as she ran her forefinger idly down the line of his chest. "Karin and I took the fuck out of fuckbuddies a couple of months ago. If I remember rightly, her exact words were 'Don't get me wrong, 'Shiro, sex with you is great and all, but we both know you're in love with Rangiku. Us sleeping together when you really want someone else is unhealthy for you and it's really tacky of me.' “
"Great and all? Ouch," Rangiku chuckled, but didn't bother to hide the quiet sense of relief she felt. For the first time since she was a teenager, she'd found a lover she wasn't willing to share.
Toushiro gave her a sexy, wicked grin and asked, “Want to kiss it better?”
“Are you kidding?” Rangiku chuckled again, as her hand reached the flesh that was hard and ready for her.
He gasped as she encircled and stroked him with one hand, groaning when she scraped ever-so-gently with her nails. As her fingers tightened around him, she felt his long, elegant fingers between her legs, and she moaned in reply, hooking her top leg over his hip to give him more room. He’d obviously put in as much effort to learning the arts of love as all the other skills she’d seen him master, and her body responded, her core becoming even wetter as her skin started to gleam with sweat. He was starting to grow slippery, too, and Rangiku clutched his head to her breasts as her hips bucked wildly.
Rangiku caught her breath, and realised that this was going to be one of the times when sex becomes body language of Shakespearean eloquence; the kind of pleasure that romance writers dream of. She'd felt it only a few times in her life - when Kisuke had asked her to test-drive the Octopus with him, the night she'd spent with Shuunsui and Jushiro for their joint birthday, and the first time with Byakuya, her back against a sakura tree while the rain pounded down on them and the gravestones stood in silent witness.
Rangiku lifted her top leg up further, her calf up near his strong young shoulder now, and gasped, “Straddle my other leg. I need you in me now.”
Toushiro gave her hardened nipple one last lick, and moved into position. With her upper leg more or less over his shoulder, he had a completely unobstructed path to her centre, and Rangiku gripped handfuls of the comforter in anticipation. She could feel the round, blunt tip nudge and rub her folds, and she let her head drop to the pillow as her hips moved restlessly, trying to impale herself on him. Toushiro just chuckled and sent the head of his cock rubbing through the heated, sticky flesh that guarded the entrance to her body. He bumped her clit, and Rangiku moaned loudly, her back arching in pleasure.
“Keep messing around like this, and I’m going to make you pay,” she warned him breathlessly.
“Sounds intriguing. Will it involve bondage?”
She would have thought him maddeningly calm if they weren’t so close she could feel the fine tremors rack his body.
“Toushiro,” she warned, in her sultriest voice.
Toushiro gasped, and she had just enough time to make note of his reaction to that voice, before he thrust into her, and her mind went blank from the glorious feeling of being filled to the brim by a hard cock. Rangiku nearly came before he entered her completely; he was the most perfect fit she’d ever had - thick enough to stretch her but not quite to the point of pain, long enough to reach every sweet spot in her core. The slow elegance of his fingers had been replaced with a swift, strong rhythm, and she realised that this wasn’t going to last as long as she’d hoped. But Toushiro had a teenager’s refraction time as well, so she wouldn’t have to wait long for another try. Toushiro moaned her name, and she realised with a little thrill that the stamina he must have worked hard to build up was vanishing under the pressure of being inside her - he must have wanted her for so long, for it to affect him like this. Toushiro angled his hips, and hit just the right place and Rangiku threw back her head and cried out. He took the hint, and started moving in shorter, harder strokes that pummelled that spot until she gave a jaguar’s scream as she came, her entire body singing.
When she was aware again, she found that Toushiro’s smooth rhythm had given way to wild pumping, and she let her limp leg slide off his shoulder, so she could reach down to dig her nails into his tight ass. With one last thrust, Toushiro came, roaring in triumph, before collapsing on top of her. Rangiku lay there, enjoying his weight on top of her, and the sensation of hot liquid pouring into her.
As Toushiro pulled out to lay by her side once again, Rangiku was startled when she realized that she’d forgotten a condom. She was on birth control, of course - she and Gin had agreed to put off children of their own until Toushiro was self-supporting and grown enough to live on his own - but this was one of only a handful of times in her life when she’d forgone a condom. After a moment’s thought, Rangiku dismissed the thought and turned to properly snuggle back against Toushiro’s chest. She knew she was clean, and Toushiro was certainly paranoid enough to get checked after he and Karin ended the sexual side of their relationship.
Feeling the steady heartbeat of her stepson against her back, Rangiku let her mind drift for a few minutes, luxuriating in the warm, golden sensation of being held by someone she loved, and who loved her.
“You’ve wanted this for a long time, haven’t you?” she asked. Her pain had been salved, and how her mind was in full working order again. “Me in your arms, as well as your bed.”
“Yes, I have. Remember when you played distraction to get Jinta out of that mess with the Arrancar family? I know how much you value your lunches with Kuchiki-san, but when I called you, you dropped everything and came straight over - just because I needed your help. I think that's when I fell for you, would you believe it?"
“When did you decide to make it happen - with the photos, I mean?”
Toushiro didn’t even flinch at the deduction that he’d sent the images that had delivered her to his bed. “I knew about Gin’s lover ages ago - a month or so after I moved in. I took the photos myself; maybe it was cruel or paranoid of me, but I felt like I needed some leverage over him. I’d already heard Tosen spout off some of his homophobic crap at a company picnic, so I knew it was damaging. I thought he’d broken it off to marry you, I really did. It wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I was sure, and I took the second set of pictures. I kept going back every week, it was almost like a sickness. I kept waiting for you to realise - I just couldn’t believe that you could love him so much that you would be blind to him. It wasn’t until your wedding anniversary that I truly understood just how unhappy you were. So I simply waited until the next business trip.”
Unseen by his lover (HIS!) he glanced over to the drawer of his bedside table, where his ultimate trump card still resided. He was so glad the pictures had been enough. He truly hoped that he could persuade Rangiku to commit to him completely by nothing more than her own volition, so that he would never have to reveal to her just how badly she’d been used, or just how deep his sperm donor’s betrayal of her ran. But if he needed to use the notarized copies of Gin’s medical files, he would. He would do anything necessary to make Rangiku his forever - even proving that Gin Ichimaru had had a vasectomy at age twenty-two. He’d never had any intention of giving her the family she wanted so much.
Seeking to change the subject before Rangiku picked up on his mood, he placed a gentle kiss on the curve of her shoulder, and asked her, “Y’know, you have a lot of… things, in that pink case of yours. Are you going to teach me how to use them all on you?”
Rangiku slid an expert hand between their bodies, and started to stroke him gently. “That depends. How many are you willing to let me use on you?”
Toushiro truly wasn’t sure whether to laugh or moan.
FINI
TITLE: Forsaken
AUTHOR: TaleWeaver
DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine, they belong to Kubo Tite.
FANDOM / PAIRING: Bleach, Toushiro Hitsugaya/Rangiku Matsumoto. Off-screen references to several other relationships, including threesomes and yaoi.
RATING / CONTENT: NC-17. M/F sex, language
SPOILERS: character backgrounds, slightly adapted to fit the AU.
SUMMARY: modern-day AU. Rangiku Matsumoto gave up years of a happy, Sex in the City-style love life to build a family with her oldest friend and first lover. But when she discovers a shattering betrayal, will she forsake the only vows she’s ever taken to start over with a man who is everything she thought her husband was - and more? Even though he’s her teenage stepson…
AUTHOR’S NOTES: this is actually an extract from a much longer story (to be titled ‘What has been forsaken’) - as such, it’s filled with references to scenes that haven’t actually been written yet.
Toushiro is Gin’s son, conceived when he was a teenager himself. After Toushiro’s mother died, Toushiro was raised by his Granny, just like in canon, though they’re blood related here (Momo, by the way, is Toushiro’s first cousin, although they consider themselves siblings). Being a child prodigy, Toushiro won a full scholarship to Tokyo University at the age of 15, but his Granny wasn’t prepared to let him go so far away from home without some kind of support, so she made him a deal; he only gets to go to Tokyo U if he moves in with his father, who he’s met all of a dozen times in his life. Gin and Toushiro don’t get along very well (in the same way that canon Aizen is ‘a little ambitious’), as evidenced by the fact that Toushiro’s still using his mother’s name. Unable for various reasons to just dump him back on Granny, Gin gets the bright idea to persuade Rangiku to marry him - worst case scenario, she’ll at least be a buffer. Best case, she can work some diplomatic magic to make them into an actual family, which is something she wants more than anything. This takes place roughly a year after the ‘real’ story begins. Toushiro is 17, Rangiku is 31.
SOUNDTRACK: ‘St Clare’ by Suzanne Vega to open; when Rangiku gets the mail it switches to ‘All along the watchtower’ by Bear McCreary; and finally to ‘Amaranth’ by Nightwish, when Rangiku literally pushes Toushiro away.
Rangiku Matsumoto Ichimaru flopped onto her back on her living room couch, and sighed. She’d gotten herself into some messy situations over the years, but this one might very well top them all.
The truly ironic thing was that she’d done it by sheer accident, really.
Twisting and sitting up once more, in a swift, fluid movement that showed her years of kendo training, she reached out for the items on the coffee table. With the sake bottle in one hand, (this was a crisis, no time for cups) she used the other to settle the photo album on her lap and flip it open.
The very first page held her wedding portrait. Rangiku took a moment to smile at her expression on the page. She looked so dizzily in love that it was funny. What wasn’t so funny, was that Gin looked the same as always. Just that same wide grin that narrowed his eyes so drastically that you couldn’t see if the smile reached them. It hadn’t changed since they’d met in the orphanage, a full twenty-one years ago. She’d been barely ten years old, wary and scared, but already so very tired of being shunted from one relative to another that she’d been relieved to be put into state care. He’d been almost thirteen, so much older and wiser, who’d taken her under his wing for what seemed like nothing more than a whim. She was the only one that had seen his excruciatingly rare, softer smile that showed off those teal eyes of his. But he hadn’t shown it to her once on their wedding day.
Rangiku gulped down the sake thirstily, as she finally came to terms with the fact that he hadn’t shown it to her once over the entire year and three weeks that they’d been married. That was even worse than the fact that, apart from their wedding anniversary, he’d barely touched her hand, let alone anything more intimate, in over two months.
Not able to cope with those implications for the moment, Rangiku turned the page, seeking the reassurance that the next photo - and all the years worth of memories, compressed into one image - gave her. Rangiku could no more have stopped the smile that instantly broke out than she could have stopped breathing. There she was, surrounded by twelve men - her former lovers, who had stayed her dear friends.
Rangiku had never bragged about her past lovers, or about her ability to keep more than one man around at a time. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her past - not in the least! - but she didn’t see it as a particular accomplishment, either. It was just a by-product of the manner in which she’d chosen to live her life, up until her marriage. But the number of her lovers that had stayed her friends? Now THAT, in her book, was something to be proud of. In eighteen years of sexual activity, she’d had no less than twenty-five men on her ‘roster’, as she called it. They had stayed with her for various lengths of time, the shortest being three months, the longest six years. They’d come from very different walks of life, with personalities that ran from playful to ever-sombre, from Zen-like serenity to fighting against the very fabric of life, it seemed, but they’d all had two things in common. They’d all regarded her with respect, from the very first moment… and they’d all been men of quality. Not necessarily in social standing or bank account, but in soul.
When Gin had asked her to marry him, to build a family with him and the son that he’d fathered at sixteen and barely knew, she’d told him straight out that she wasn’t giving up her inner circle. She’d be faithful to him from that moment on, but she was not going to give up the satisfying and fulfilling friendships that she’d formed, simply because the majority of them had once shared her bed. Gin had agreed, and her friends had become even more precious to her, once she’d traded full-time work for telecommuting part-time (she couldn’t become a full-time housewife - she’d go nuts!).
So she still went out bar-crawling with Renji, Ikkaku, Ayasegawa and Shuuhei every Wednesday - although she always went home alone, now. She met Byakuya for lunch every week without fail. She had afternoon tea with Shuunsui and Jushiro every other Sunday, with Nanao joining them whenever she returned from her weekly visit with her parents. Keeping in touch with Kisuke had always been rather sporadic - usually, she just dropped by whenever she was in the neighbourhood; but that had actually become more frequent since her marriage, when she’d introduced his foster-children to her stepson, and they’d all wound up on the same neighbourhood soccer team. Komamura’s emails were irregular, but what could you expect from the African savannah? The lions weren’t going to delay forming the perfect widescreen shot for the sake of an internet uplink. Hanatoro and Ganju were still stuck in the South American jungles somewhere, giving medical treatment to natives and building bridges with the Peace Corps, but she got the occasional letter to assure her they were just fine, packaged with colourful handicrafts that she proudly displayed in the house, even though she wasn’t quite sure what most of them were.
But they’d all made it to her wedding, and watched her walk down the aisle with genuine smiles on their faces (well, except for Byakuya, but his face had definitely relaxed). Yes, she was happy with her friends. Too bad she couldn’t say the same thing about her husband - even though he was the man who’d been in her life the longest.
Groaning again, Rangiku dumped the photo album onto the table and took another long drink of sake. When she came up for air, the bottle was nearly empty - it didn’t mean much, not with her legendary tolerance, but it was probably a signal that it was time to stop wallowing and start thinking, dammit.
Placing the bottle on the floor, she lay back on the sofa - always her favourite thinking position - and let her mind drift back to a few hours ago.
Rangiku flipped through the playlists on her mp3 player, before settling on something slow and dreamy. Once she’d set it to repeat, she popped it in the speakers and set to work. First of all, she efficiently stripped off all her clothes, dropping them in a neat pile next to the stereo. Next, she knelt on the carpet and opened the custom-made, pink leather case, roughly the same size as a laptop bag. Inside was a truly astounding assortment of sex toys, courtesy of Kisuke. She had been the one to suggest he make an attempt to turn his kinky hobby into a legitimate side-business. “Cool Devices” was now one of the fastest-growing internet businesses in the sex industry. As a thank you, Kisuke had kept her on as a test driver for all the new toys, gifting her with free customised models of all the ones she liked.
Deciding she was in the mood for something simple (relatively speaking) she picked out a vibrator - it was actually the very first one he’d ever given her, back when he’d been teaching at her high school. Crawling languorously underneath the skylight, Rangiku sprawled out in the large square of sunlight that spread over the carpet, tucking a throw pillow from the couch beneath her head. She loved the feeling of light on her skin when she was in a sensuous mood - sunlight was her favourite, but she loved moonlight, firelight and candlelight too.
Lying back and opening her legs, she left the vibrator by her side for the moment and started to arouse herself with her hands. Lightly gliding her fingertips over her skin, she delighted in the trail of ripples that travelled through her flesh. Rangiku had learned early on that she was one of the rare women who was as easily aroused as a man, but that didn’t mean she skimped on the basics. Rangiku knew every one of her erogenous zones, and now paid proper attention to all of them. The song had cycled through twice before she reached for the wet folds between her legs, slowly rubbing the sensitised flesh, before reaching for the vibrator. Turning it on the lowest setting, she gently slid it back and forth between her nether lips, letting her own juices lubricate it slightly, before working the rounded tip inside her. Rubbing one of her nipples, twisting it gently like she was tuning an instrument, Rangiku gulped in a deep breath, throwing her head back against the throw pillow as she gently pushed the vibrator all the way in.
She lost track of time after that, lost in the pleasure - and yet unutterable loneliness - of satisfying herself. The brush of her own hands on her skin, knowing exactly what she liked best… but they were her own hands. She missed the tender feeling of the hands of someone who cared about her, who wanted to give her pleasure because they cared. There was really nothing like it in the world, and the sensations and tangible emotions of another person’s affection and consideration of her - simply put, the feeling of being loved - had always been her favourite part of sex.
Rangiku never knew what it was that brought her out of her semi-trance - a delayed reaction from her martial arts training, a distant memory of hearing the door slam - but she jerked as if someone had flicked her with ice water, her body suddenly but completely immobilized. Her head turned towards the doorway, and there stood a frozen Toushiro, still wearing his backpack and his face almost as pale as his hair.
Rangiku’s gaze flickered sideways to double-check the clock on the stereo. “You’re not due home for another hour, yet,” she panted. She wasn’t going to apologize, dammit. She was a woman with needs, and she had to right to service them! But her stepson shouldn’t be seeing her this way, either. “Just give me a minute, and I’ll get dressed and go upstairs.”
“Don’t bother,” came an imperturbable reply, “There’s no need to interrupt yourself on my account.”
Rangiku only saw his face for a moment before he ducked his head and dropped to one knee beside her, but she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of something unmistakeable in his turquoise eyes - not lust, but desire, the kind that’s reserved for someone very special in your life. It might have been because she was so intent on his eyes, that she didn’t see what his hands were doing. But she most definitely felt it, when he smoothly took hold of the base of her vibrator, and simultaneously managed to twist the vibrator so that the hook-shaped protrusion precisely rested on her clitoris, thrust it as deep inside her as it could go, and turned the vibration dial to the maximum.
Rangiku’s back arched, her body leaving the floor completely between her shoulders and backside, as her world disappeared in a swirl of white with technicolour edges, and nearly every nerve ending in her body sang in unison, as she was thrown headlong into the best orgasm she’d had since her wedding night.
When she came out of it, Toushiro was nowhere to be seen.
Rangiku had always prided herself on her lack of self-deception, and now was no time to start. Sighing, Rangiku forced herself to admit it. While the vibrator had been as enjoyable as always, what had sent her spinning in a blur of white light had been the brush of cool, gentle fingers against the overheated skin of her inner thigh. Not only that, but that look of desire had been in the back of his eyes for months now, smothered and banked to be imperceptible, but growing steadily.
“No! There is NO WAY this is going to become a hentai manga scenario!” Rangiku muttered furiously to herself.
But she didn’t think it was very smart to leave it like this, either. She needed to talk this out with Toushiro. Though was now really the best time? Perhaps it would be best to wait for the situation to cool down (and for Gin to get home, pointed out a corner of her mind), or would that only let things fester and grow worse?
The clunk of the mail-slot brought her out of her brooding, and she gave a sigh of relief as she went to the front door. Picking up the single item from the last mail of the day, she strolled back into the living room, draining the sake bottle in a single long swig, before slumping back on the couch and scrutinising the envelope. It was a long habit from the orphanage, to make sure you didn’t open anyone else’s mail by mistake. Privacy was a premium commodity in state care; fistfights and revenge schemes were far from unknown for such transgressions, even inadvertedly.
There wasn’t anything special about it, just an A3 size manila envelope with her name and address printed on a sticker on the front, with no return address. Shrugging, Rangiku ripped the envelope open, and a thick stack of photos dropped into her lap. Picking up the top picture, Rangiku’s eyebrows lifted, then came back down as she chuckled.
“Well, well, who’s a wicked boy, then?” she murmured to herself, as she tilted her head to get a better look.
The background was standard, bland, love hotel, which somehow managed to set off the two men in the bed perfectly. Even if Gin hadn’t been on top, something about the other man screamed ‘uke’ - not just the way his blond bangs completely hid one eye, or even that he was shorter and quite a bit slimmer than Gin. Maybe it was the way his entire body seemed to bow, as if burdened by a terrible weight.
Rangiku was a little annoyed that Gin hadn’t told her about this himself - it wasn’t as if she would have found it offensive or anything. On the other hand, there were things about her past sex life that she’d never told him about either, simply because it never came up. It was, however, perfectly obvious to Rangiku why he’d kept it secret. Tosen Kaname was blatantly homophobic - she’d almost thrown up in disgust at hearing his drunken rant at Aizen, Inc’s end of year party - and if he’d had any idea that Gin had done some switch-hitting, no matter how far in the past, Gin’s career would have been permanently stalled or outright ended, no matter how much damage that would have done to the company. Like most bigots, Tosen was blinded by his own ignorance.
While she’d seen far more blatant displays of yaoi before, Rangiku found herself mildly titillated as she flipped through the photos. About halfway through, the background changed to a far more richly decorated room, with what looked to be silk sheets.
“Hmmm, Valentine’s day?” Rangiku wondered…
…then looked at the date stamp at the bottom of the photo, and froze. Unable to take her eyes off the date, a distant part of her mind noted that there were at least a dozen more photos in the stack. Still frozen, she automatically kept paging through the images.
The last fifteen pictures were all dated after her wedding to Gin.
Rangiku’s eyes glazed over, gone glassy with shock. Moving with the slow, graceful movements of a sleepwalker, she dropped the photos on the coffee table, next to her wedding album. Her wedding ring followed, the glossy paper cushioning it and keeping the metal from chiming against the wood. Even as her longest-held, most secretly cherished dreams turned to ash and her heart crumbled, the fierce, deep-running appetite of her body, denied true satisfaction for so long, made its craving clear.
As she rose to her feet with slow, feline grace, the glaze seeped from her eyes, to be replaced by a fiery, hungry cunning that had only been seen by a selected few of her lovers - but not Gin. Never Gin.
It had been Kisuke, her second lover, who had nicknamed her the Hellcat - partly for the marks her nails left on his back, partly for the way she growled during particularly good sex and purred in the best afterglow. As her sensual appetites developed and grew - not just for sex, but for the taste of delicious food and drink, for the scent of flowers and perfume and healthy sweat, for the feel of silk and heat and coolness against her skin - Rangiku sometimes thought she could hear the Hellcat in her mind, as a separate entity. She could hear the growling in the back of her mind now, a black panther in mating heat and about to strike for the kill, and a feline smile curved her lips as she languidly made her way upstairs, where she silently opened the door she wanted and slipped inside.
Her normally preternaturally-aware stepson was oblivious to her entrance, fully absorbed in the manga he held and the music pouring into his ears. Rangiku’s eyes traced the white cord of his headphones to the mp3 player lying on the bedside table. She made an absent bet with herself that Nightwish was playing - he always liked listening to them when he read xxxHOLIC.
As she surveyed the lean figure sitting on the bed, the tip of her tongue flickered over her lips lingeringingly. Even in the deepest, most blinded times of her love for Gin, she could not truthfully admit that he was physically ideal. His body was well-muscled, but the broad shoulders and thick biceps were ever-so-slightly out of proportion with his torso - something about the shape of his frame spoke of beatings in dark alleys. The fox-like face that never, ever, let you see its true motives, the permanent squint that hid his lovely teal eyes. The silver hair that she’d always loved to run her fingers through was coarse to the touch - and he’d always hated the colour that she so admired. So what if he wasn’t gorgeous, her teenage self had thought - he was interesting, striking! Why had it taken this betrayal to realise that his looks were ‘interesting’ in the same way as an Escher print, or Seeing Eye picture?
His son, on the other hand, had all of his father’s highlights, and none of his flaws. For the first time in years she let herself wonder about the woman she’d hated from the very depths of her passionate adolescent heart, and what she’d looked like. Marvelled at how Aoi Hitsugaya’s genes had harmonised with Gin’s to form something extraordinary - not just the genius intellect and the grave, fierce heart, but physically as well. Toushiro was the same height as her, but his lean body was perfectly proportioned - the kendo classes she’d dragged him to as a bonding activity had added an inch to his shoulders, and refined his already-toned physique to a perfection that had women taking a second look in the street. The features that were just a little too sharp on Gin were sculpted on his offspring, with a beauty that was still infinitely male. The eyes that lost focus over physics equations, dreaming of a phenomenon or reaction that only he could comprehend, or sharpened with disturbing perception or hardened with implacable determination, were of an even deeper and more compelling shade of teal than his sire’s. The odd silver hue turned the pure white of ice, and even now Rangiku found the tufted crests that his thick hair naturally spiked into endearing. Gin’s hair was so fine that his face-framing crop was literally the only style he could manage.
Gin had married her so they could build a family, the three of them, but there was a very good reason she’d never even tried to make Toushiro call her ‘Mother’. Whether it was the responsibility of his extraordinary intelligence, or always being the ‘man of the house’ with a canny but fragile old woman, and a barely-older sister with her head permanently in the clouds, but Toushiro had already been a man when she met him. A very young man, but a man nonetheless.
She didn’t know what alerted Toushiro - had she unconsciously shifted her weight onto a creaking floorboard, or had her heart simply started pounding hard enough to be audible? - but his head twisted towards the door with startling swiftness. One look at her figure, lounging against the back of the closed door, and he knew exactly what she was there for. Her eyes locked with his, and that was all that was needed. Raw sexual chemistry ignited and blazed, the very air becoming hazy as the tension crackled between them like a storm about to break. Eyes never leaving hers, he slowly and deliberately plucked the headphones from his ears and placed them on the bedside table, along with the closed book. In a single fluid movement, he was off the bed and stalking towards her, a dragon locked onto its prey.
He slowly, deliberately fitted his body to hers, until they were pressed together tightly from chest to thigh, but leaving her arms free to move. His hands slid under her hair to cradle her jaw in one hand, and the back of her head in the other. He gazed into her eyes searchingly for a long moment, and only then did he kiss her, gently but thoroughly, his mouth scorching hers like a brand. Rangiku gasped, as her blood heated in her veins, and wrapped her arms around Toushiro’s lower back to keep him close. His lips parted in welcome for her tongue, and she gently teased his tongue with her own. He moaned into her mouth, and as her arms tightened around him, his hips began to rock against hers insistently. Rangiku could feel the hardness between his legs, so very close to where she needed it, and tried to shift her hips to get it there.
When they broke off the kiss for air, Toushiro’s mouth moved to her neck, planting gentle kisses up and down her throat, lingering and sucking tenderly on the place where her pulse pounded so hard it felt like it would burst through her skin. His hands moved to her hips, and Rangiku shifted her weight, widening her stance enough so his legs fit comfortably between hers. Her arms moved him into place, and Rangiku moaned, as his denim-covered erection rubbed the perfect spot. The wave of pleasure washed over her, and it was enough to clear her mind.
Rangiku’s eyes snapped open, wide in horror.
Sweet Kami in heaven, what was she DOING?
A stream of images flickered through her mind; Toushiro after they’d been sparring, gingerly rubbing the bruises she’d given him through the kendo padding, and giving her an admiring look. Toushiro rolling his eyes as he dried the dishes faster than she washed them. Toushiro chiding her for taking more than her fair share of the popcorn during their watch-and-mock Godzilla movie marathon. Toushiro’s amazed, grateful smile when he realized that she’d left lunch with Byakuya to come get Jinta out of trouble, simply because he had called her to ask for help. Toushiro coming to her for advice on birthday presents for Momo, Granny and Karin. Toushiro resignedly helping her to bed when she’d come back from a night out with the Fight club quartet so intoxicated she couldn’t make it up the stairs without tumbling down them. Toushiro insisting on taking charge of the presents when they went to Shuunsui and Nanao’s for Christmas lunch, so she wouldn’t forget any of the sake or food she’d promised to bring.
Toushiro was her friend, just as much as any of the men who were gathered around her in the photo she’d been looking at half an hour ago. Using him for sex was one thing - as long as he was happy with it - but using him for revenge? Fucking him simply because he was the one man she could take to her bed that would truly insult and wound Gin? Using him when she knew that the reason he was so self-controlled was that all the emotions he allowed himself to feel - joy, pain, triumph, sorrow - were all so intense they bordered on violent?
Rangiku didn’t treat her friends that way. The first vow Rangiku had ever taken had been to herself, and it meant that she could never treat anyone that way.
Toushiro’s hips thrust against her again, and Rangiku moaned, even as she flattened her palms on his chest and pushed him away.
“I’m sorry, please forgive me,” she pleaded, eyes watering with tears of self-recrimination she refused to shed. “Please forgive me for doing this to you.”
“You’re not doing anything to me that I don’t want,” he told her matter-of-factly, despite his tight grip on her hips and the prominent bulge in his jeans. “You’re not doing anything to me that I’m not enjoying very much.”
Another man might have tried to kiss her again, tried to tease her back into an amorous mood. Not Toushiro; he knew her better than that. Rangiku gulped in deep breaths of air to steady her pounding heart, and did her best to explain.
“When I was 14 years old, I only loved one person in the world. When I was 15, I found out that he had given a child to another woman, and my heart shattered so completely that I wished it would turn to ash. I vowed then that I would never break another person's heart. I can't use you like this. Not you, Toushiro."
"Then don't,” Toushiro told her, his voice tight with a need she recognised all too well. “Come to my bed because you want to. Make love with me because you've already given way too much of your life to a man who was never worthy of you, who's already discarded the vows you held as holy, and you have nothing left to keep you from a man who desires you so badly-” his voice cracked, like the adolescent she'd never known him to be. He swallowed hard, and his eyes turned the colour of the South China Sea.
“Nothing to keep you from a man who loves you, so much it burns.”
Rangiku’s breath stalled in her lungs for a long moment. She’d had men declare love for her before, but not like this - not from a man who never said anything he didn’t mean. Rangiku never took her eyes from his - from the truth shining in those cyan orbs - as she calmly reached out and started to unbutton his shirt. She never took her eyes from his as she unhooked his belt, undid his jeans, and his remaining clothing puddled around his bare feet. His hands were busy as well; the buttons on the outer shirt she was wearing gave way, and she felt the cloth slide off her shoulders. The zip and hook of her short skirt were within easy reach, and Toushiro sent her skirt to join the pile of garments already on the floor. He slid one arm around her back and crouched down just far enough to slide the other behind her knees, picking her up off the floor in one smooth movement before he carried her to the bed.
Gently depositing her on the dragon-emblazoned comforter, he stood up to slip off his boxers, before climbing onto the bed. Rangiku had already shed her stretchy camisole, and was busily unhooking her bra as he stretched out beside her, watching with something that looked like contentment in his eyes as she wriggled out of her bikini underwear (she didn’t care how sexy thongs were supposed to be, they were damn uncomfortable). Lying back down, she rolled onto her side so that they were face to face, and Toushiro reached out to draw her close.
As an extension of her vow, Rangiku remembered a certain conversation she’d had with Toushiro’s best friend last winter, in the bleachers of Tokyo U’s gym as he’d led the kendo team to victory. "Karin won't mind, will she?" Rangiku asked absently.
Toushiro gave a strangled chuckle as she ran her forefinger idly down the line of his chest. "Karin and I took the fuck out of fuckbuddies a couple of months ago. If I remember rightly, her exact words were 'Don't get me wrong, 'Shiro, sex with you is great and all, but we both know you're in love with Rangiku. Us sleeping together when you really want someone else is unhealthy for you and it's really tacky of me.' “
"Great and all? Ouch," Rangiku chuckled, but didn't bother to hide the quiet sense of relief she felt. For the first time since she was a teenager, she'd found a lover she wasn't willing to share.
Toushiro gave her a sexy, wicked grin and asked, “Want to kiss it better?”
“Are you kidding?” Rangiku chuckled again, as her hand reached the flesh that was hard and ready for her.
He gasped as she encircled and stroked him with one hand, groaning when she scraped ever-so-gently with her nails. As her fingers tightened around him, she felt his long, elegant fingers between her legs, and she moaned in reply, hooking her top leg over his hip to give him more room. He’d obviously put in as much effort to learning the arts of love as all the other skills she’d seen him master, and her body responded, her core becoming even wetter as her skin started to gleam with sweat. He was starting to grow slippery, too, and Rangiku clutched his head to her breasts as her hips bucked wildly.
Rangiku caught her breath, and realised that this was going to be one of the times when sex becomes body language of Shakespearean eloquence; the kind of pleasure that romance writers dream of. She'd felt it only a few times in her life - when Kisuke had asked her to test-drive the Octopus with him, the night she'd spent with Shuunsui and Jushiro for their joint birthday, and the first time with Byakuya, her back against a sakura tree while the rain pounded down on them and the gravestones stood in silent witness.
Rangiku lifted her top leg up further, her calf up near his strong young shoulder now, and gasped, “Straddle my other leg. I need you in me now.”
Toushiro gave her hardened nipple one last lick, and moved into position. With her upper leg more or less over his shoulder, he had a completely unobstructed path to her centre, and Rangiku gripped handfuls of the comforter in anticipation. She could feel the round, blunt tip nudge and rub her folds, and she let her head drop to the pillow as her hips moved restlessly, trying to impale herself on him. Toushiro just chuckled and sent the head of his cock rubbing through the heated, sticky flesh that guarded the entrance to her body. He bumped her clit, and Rangiku moaned loudly, her back arching in pleasure.
“Keep messing around like this, and I’m going to make you pay,” she warned him breathlessly.
“Sounds intriguing. Will it involve bondage?”
She would have thought him maddeningly calm if they weren’t so close she could feel the fine tremors rack his body.
“Toushiro,” she warned, in her sultriest voice.
Toushiro gasped, and she had just enough time to make note of his reaction to that voice, before he thrust into her, and her mind went blank from the glorious feeling of being filled to the brim by a hard cock. Rangiku nearly came before he entered her completely; he was the most perfect fit she’d ever had - thick enough to stretch her but not quite to the point of pain, long enough to reach every sweet spot in her core. The slow elegance of his fingers had been replaced with a swift, strong rhythm, and she realised that this wasn’t going to last as long as she’d hoped. But Toushiro had a teenager’s refraction time as well, so she wouldn’t have to wait long for another try. Toushiro moaned her name, and she realised with a little thrill that the stamina he must have worked hard to build up was vanishing under the pressure of being inside her - he must have wanted her for so long, for it to affect him like this. Toushiro angled his hips, and hit just the right place and Rangiku threw back her head and cried out. He took the hint, and started moving in shorter, harder strokes that pummelled that spot until she gave a jaguar’s scream as she came, her entire body singing.
When she was aware again, she found that Toushiro’s smooth rhythm had given way to wild pumping, and she let her limp leg slide off his shoulder, so she could reach down to dig her nails into his tight ass. With one last thrust, Toushiro came, roaring in triumph, before collapsing on top of her. Rangiku lay there, enjoying his weight on top of her, and the sensation of hot liquid pouring into her.
As Toushiro pulled out to lay by her side once again, Rangiku was startled when she realized that she’d forgotten a condom. She was on birth control, of course - she and Gin had agreed to put off children of their own until Toushiro was self-supporting and grown enough to live on his own - but this was one of only a handful of times in her life when she’d forgone a condom. After a moment’s thought, Rangiku dismissed the thought and turned to properly snuggle back against Toushiro’s chest. She knew she was clean, and Toushiro was certainly paranoid enough to get checked after he and Karin ended the sexual side of their relationship.
Feeling the steady heartbeat of her stepson against her back, Rangiku let her mind drift for a few minutes, luxuriating in the warm, golden sensation of being held by someone she loved, and who loved her.
“You’ve wanted this for a long time, haven’t you?” she asked. Her pain had been salved, and how her mind was in full working order again. “Me in your arms, as well as your bed.”
“Yes, I have. Remember when you played distraction to get Jinta out of that mess with the Arrancar family? I know how much you value your lunches with Kuchiki-san, but when I called you, you dropped everything and came straight over - just because I needed your help. I think that's when I fell for you, would you believe it?"
“When did you decide to make it happen - with the photos, I mean?”
Toushiro didn’t even flinch at the deduction that he’d sent the images that had delivered her to his bed. “I knew about Gin’s lover ages ago - a month or so after I moved in. I took the photos myself; maybe it was cruel or paranoid of me, but I felt like I needed some leverage over him. I’d already heard Tosen spout off some of his homophobic crap at a company picnic, so I knew it was damaging. I thought he’d broken it off to marry you, I really did. It wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I was sure, and I took the second set of pictures. I kept going back every week, it was almost like a sickness. I kept waiting for you to realise - I just couldn’t believe that you could love him so much that you would be blind to him. It wasn’t until your wedding anniversary that I truly understood just how unhappy you were. So I simply waited until the next business trip.”
Unseen by his lover (HIS!) he glanced over to the drawer of his bedside table, where his ultimate trump card still resided. He was so glad the pictures had been enough. He truly hoped that he could persuade Rangiku to commit to him completely by nothing more than her own volition, so that he would never have to reveal to her just how badly she’d been used, or just how deep his sperm donor’s betrayal of her ran. But if he needed to use the notarized copies of Gin’s medical files, he would. He would do anything necessary to make Rangiku his forever - even proving that Gin Ichimaru had had a vasectomy at age twenty-two. He’d never had any intention of giving her the family she wanted so much.
Seeking to change the subject before Rangiku picked up on his mood, he placed a gentle kiss on the curve of her shoulder, and asked her, “Y’know, you have a lot of… things, in that pink case of yours. Are you going to teach me how to use them all on you?”
Rangiku slid an expert hand between their bodies, and started to stroke him gently. “That depends. How many are you willing to let me use on you?”
Toushiro truly wasn’t sure whether to laugh or moan.
FINI