Hello everyone and welcome.

I have decided to start a new collection of one shots for my Bleach plotbunnies, very much like my Fairy Tail collection of one shots.

These one shots will be centered around Ichigo and Orihime, but I will add chapters around other of my favorite Bleach pairings as well, so please look forward to it.

Thank you in advance for your support!

1. Lessons in Love

The light in the former nursery turned on when she stepped inside the darkened room with her 4 year old son in her arms, getting ready to put the boy to bed for the night.

"I'm not sleepy, mommy..."

Orihime smiled tiredly as she placed him down in his bed and pulled the covers over him lovingly. "Little boys need to sleep, so they can grow up to be big and strong."

Sora rolled onto his side and stared at her wearily. "Did Mamo-chan have to go to bed, too?"

She smirked amusedly at that and nodded. "Your big brother is already fast asleep. That's why he's bigger than you."

"Did daddy sleep a lot, too?" Sora murmured drowsily.

"Yes, that's why he's so strong, you know?" she whispered, brushing a kiss on his forehead lovingly.

"I want to be strong like daddy, too..." the orange haired boy whispered before falling asleep.

Orihime sighed and stood up, quietly turning around to leave her youngest son's room. She'd barely closed the door behind her when her other son walked up to her, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "Mom, dad is on his way back. He's hurt."

She took a moment to look up her husband's Spiritual signature, coming to the same conclusion. "It's nothing to worry about, love. Go back to bed," she replied very softly, moving away from Sora's door. "You have school in the morning." She walked up to him and turned him around. "Plus, your little brother has finally fallen asleep, so keep quiet."

Mamoru nodded and followed her down the hall back to his room, halting in the doorway to look back at her hesitantly. "Mom, you and dad are okay, right?"

Orihime smiled at her eldest son and dismissed his worries with the shake of her head. "What makes you think that we are not, Mamo-chan?"

Mamoru bit his lower lip and averted his gaze. "You fight almost every night lately, mom... And you rarely smile when he's here anymore."

She hid her startled expression behind another smile and approached him, kneeling in front of him. Her hands went over his messy mop of brown hair lovingly as she observed him for a moment. At 8 years old, Mamoru was amazingly perceptive, with no small thanks of course to his newly awakened Spiritual awareness. "Your father and I still love each other very much," she whispered, looking at him pleadingly "I'm sorry our talking late at night has you worried, but there will be times when your dad and I will argue, it's something people who love each other do sometimes. It certainly doesn't mean that we don't like each other anymore."

The young boy thought about it for a moment. "Like when you got really mad at me when I hurt Sora?"

Orihime nodded. "I got mad, but it didn't make me love you less. Nothing you or your dad do will ever make me love you less."

Mamoru returned her smile and moved in to hug her tightly, visibly relieved with her answer. "I love you, mom."

"I love you too, Mamo-chan," she replied, hugging him back and kissing him on his temple. "Off to bed now."

"Goodnight, mom."

"Goodnight, love," she whispered, letting him go. She waited for him to be in his bed before throwing him a kiss, turning off the light in his room and closing his door gently. She made her way down the hall and down the stairs leading to the ground floor and the incoming hall. Her senses picked up Ichigo's approach and she headed to the back of their house, past the dining room and into their sun room, where she chose to wait for him.

She saw him land in their garden a moment later, a deep gash in his left shoulder. Orihime opened the glass door leading to their porch and let him in silently. He sat down on the cane couch nearby with a sigh and she followed suit, lifting her hands to start healing him.

"Mamoru felt you getting hurt. It woke him," she softly spoke. "He knew about it before I did."

"Really?" Ichigo said regretfully. "I was distracted for just a second..."

"He's fine..." she whispered back reassuringly. "He understands what you have to do."

Ichigo sighed tiredly and looked at his wife. "He grew up so fast."

Orihime only glanced at him furtively, refusing to meet his eyes. "He did. Sora will be coming into his powers soon, too."

"Maybe he will take after you this time," he said with an excited grin.

"Mamoru could still take after me, who knows?" she reasoned, lowering her hands now that she had finished healing him.

Ichigo flexed his left arm and moved his shoulder tentatively. "Thank you," he said after she'd gotten ready to leave. It was obvious that she was still upset about their recent fight. "Hime?"

She turned around patiently, but didn't say a word.

"About last night," he began, standing up. "I'm sorry. I realized that I hadn't apologized for the things I said."

Her eyes rolled away from his and she closed them, shrugging. "We both said things we shouldn't have."

He walked up to her, her quiet indifference rendering him desperate. "We need to get out of this, Hime."

Orihime looked at him again and sighed softly. "I don't know what else to add to the topic. I can't see us having another child with you never being here... Your youngest son barely knows you, Ichigo."

Ichigo closed his eyes and sighed, turning away from her. They'd had this argument many times before. "What would you have me do? Cut down on my hours at the office? Find a job you have no objections with?"

"Do not bring Ikumi-san up again!" She interjected exasperatedly with a roll of her eyes. "And this is not about me!"

"I didn't ask to be made partner!" he told her, perhaps a bit too loudly. " But I would've thought that it would make you happy! The firm has expanded and I only accepted so you and the kids wouldn't have to worry about anything!"

Orihime only shook her head in an irritated manner, huffing in disbelieve. "If you're never around, what's the point?" she quietly said, wrapping her arms on her chest with another shrug and getting ready to walk on.

He walked up to her quickly and grabbed her by an arm, turning her around. "Don't go turn this into something that it isn't, Hime," he said in a low tone, staring into her angered eyes.

She pulled her arm out of his hold and stepped into his personal space tauntingly. "Really? Pray tell then, what is this truly about? Is money the only reason why you spend so little time with your family? Because it's not the Soul Society, they haven't been in contact for months."

"For the love of-"

"You're the one who brought it up, so explain!" she yelled, pushing him away from her. "What is this about? You seem to think that you know what I'm thinking, so tell me!"

Ichigo rolled his eyes with a loud grunt. "Do you hear yourself, woman?!" he hollered. "There is no way that she's interested in me that way!"

"I never said that she was," she retorted cooly, eyes hard. "But you seem to think that there's a chance that she is. I know you."

He closed his eyes and sighed out deeply, realizing that he might have made things worse for himself. And he couldn't deny that he had sensed some form of attentiveness coming from his longtime employer, which he'd always brushed off as mere professional interest. But if Orihime's insticts told him what he'd suspected for a while, then it was probably true. His wife's instincts and intuition were some of the few things he never took lightly. "There's nothing between her and me," he told her gently, looking her in the eyes, wanting for her to see the truth there. "Only work. I have no interest in her whatsoever, Hime. You know that. You're the mother of my beautiful children, there's no way I would ever find what you give me with another woman. The thought doesn't even come up in my mind to go look elsewhere. It's you that I love, who I vowed to share the rest of my life with and with whom I share half of my soul with."

"Then what is keeping you from coming home before your children go to bed? Your Shinigami duties?" she asked, sighing and wrapping her arms around herself, hugging herself tightly. "You have a family of your own now, Ichigo. You're a father and a husband. Your sons deserve to be put first in your list of priorities! If that woman is keeping you from coming home at a decent hour every night, then you should tell her that." She watched him fidget uneasily and scratch the back of his hair, knowing that he was giving in, albeit reluctantly. "Uryuu and Sado would gladly take over from you if you would only let them. They understand the situation you're in."

"So you want me to stop exorcising Hollows now, is that it?" he asked her softly, taking a step closer to her. "I had no way of avoiding a confrontation tonight, Hime."

"I gathered that when Kon arrived before you did," Orihime calmly spoke, nodding in the direction of their bedroom. She then lifted weary eyes up to him and shook her head pleadingly. "Your sons are 8 and 4 years old. I'm not asking you stop being who you are, I'm just asking you to think about them. Think about the impact your constant absence will have on their lives. Especially if they have no one to relate to concerning their Shinigami powers. They need you."

He continued to stare at her while her words echoed in his head, the despair in her eyes hard for him to bear. Over the years, they both have had to switch their priorities in life, something that happens naturally when you become parents. As the needs of their little family began to grow, so did their responsibilities towards their children of course and the people around them. It was a hectic life, but not one without fulfilment and joy, or at least that's what he'd thought until recently. When did the distance between him and his family grow so wide? "And what about you? Do you still need me?"

She averted her eyes and stepped away from him, choosing not to see the hurt on his face. "This isn't about me," she stated again.

"Of course it is," he whispered back, closing the small distance between them again. "You've been effacing yourself from this situation, making it seem like the kids are the only ones having a problem with the way I spend my time away from home."

Orihime locked her arms over her chest and turned to her side, resting her shoulder against the archway separating their dining room from the sunroom. She never said a word.

"We haven't been intimate in two weeks," Ichigo remarked quietly, looking at her unresponsive frame sadly. "I miss you. I miss making love to you. Tell me what it is you need, Hime. For once in your life, ask something of me for yourself."

A tear found its way down her face and she wiped it away in an annoyed manner, biting her lower lip to fight against the rest of them threatening to spill over. For the past few weeks, there had been something eating at her, an issue she did not know how to address him about. Because of their constant bickering whenever they had some time alone, she'd never really wanted to bring it up out of fear of making things worse. It was clear now however that they had come to a point where things couldn't get much worse. But was it the time to tell him about it, though? "I..." she began but stopped, shaking her head. "There's nothing..."

Those last words hurt him, not because she said them, but because he realised that he not only had made himself less available for his children, but for his own wife as well, more than he had thought. "Please talk to me... I want to know what I can do to remedy this..."

She rested her eyes on him now and she figured that he misinterpreted her words. The anguish in his expression and words however did not leave her unaffected. "It's not that I can't talk to you about it... I just wish in a way... That I didn't feel like this," she tried to explain, desperately trying to find the right words, her tears now flowing. "When I found out that I was pregnant with Mamoru, it was the happiest day of my life. I always wanted to give you a child, a family. I always wanted to be a mom and that dream came true and everything was amazing and I was so happy."

Ichigo frowned, trying to understand. "What changed...?" he whispered gently, moving to stand in front of her, searching for her eyes.

Orihime looked at him now, lips trembling. "I did," she said apologetically, sobbing quietly when she saw his eyes grow pained. "It's so stupid..." she sniffled, wiping away more tears. "I love being a mom," she whispered, reaching for his face with both her hands, wanting to reassure him, even if her words hurt. "I love being your wife," she confessed with a watery smile as he smirked briefly. "And somehow, I thought that that would be enough... But it isn't... And I hate that it isn't!"

Understanding dawned on Ichigo and he cracked a relieved smile, taking her in a strong embrace. "Orihime. There's nothing wrong with wanting more than being a housewife. I'm happy that you want more."

"I want to pursue my Master degree in Psychology and help people that way... Maybe open a practice after a while," she whispered over his shoulder, hugging him back. "I thought that wanting time away from my children would be frowned upon and with you being gone all the time it made me envy and resent you at the same time."

He smiled warmly in her hair and kissed her temple, retreating from the embrace to look at her. "What is this? The 1950's? Or feudal Japan? I never stopped you from getting a job, did I?"

Orihime blushed in embarrassment and chuckled softly, shaking her head. "I know, but I've always been of the belief that a mother needs to take care of her children and her husband. Your mom was a stay at home mother, so I thought that that was what you were ok with."

"You're not my mother," he simply stated, brushing her tears from her face with his thumbs. "It's your life, do what you want with it. I'll support you to the best of my abilities as your devoted husband. We can hammer out the details of how to make you going back to school work with the kids."

She smiled happily at him, staring at him in wonder. "Are you sure?"

"I'll cut down on my work and delegate my Shinigami duties to Ishida and Sado," he stated with a nod. "If it'll make the mother of my children happy, then I will do whatever it takes. Now that I understand your feelings, there's nothing I won't do."

She kissed him passionately, laughing blissfully when he returned the kiss with fervor. "What about that little girl you've been asking me for?"

"I'll ask you again in two years, after you're done with your Master," he shrugged. "We'll need time to adjust to our new work schedules anyway."

"That was easy," Orihime remarked, surprised.

Ichigo scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Well, I need to figure out how to be a good and present dad to the boys first. I can't push the raising of Masaki solely onto your shoulders too."

She grinned and ran a hand through his hair. "Masaki, huh...?"

He shrugged again and smirked. "Just thought I'd throw it out there."

Orihime laughed and kissed him once more. "I like it."

"Alright then," he murmured, staring at her lips. "Now, Mrs Kurosaki, I feel like we have some more making up to do. Like upstairs, in our bed."

She giggled behind a hand and shook her head amusedly when he planted his lips in the side of her throat and took suckle there. "Not beating around the bush, are we?"

"What bush?" he murmured impatiently, one hand already cupping one of her breasts wantonly through her chiffon shirt. "You're so beautiful..." he whispered, pulling the bow of her dress shirt loose teasingly before moving in to pull it out of her pencil skirt and kissing her again, unbuttoning her shirt and letting it fall down her arms.

She embraced his broad shoulders and kissed him back, caressing her tongue over his sultrily as his hands slid up underneath her skirt and up her thighs. "I love you," she murmured against his lips, arching her back against the wall when his strong hands ripped her flimsy underwear apart.

He watched her eyes roll into the back of her head when he pressed two fingers against her and gently massaged her swollen bud, groaning lustfully in the side of her neck as he slid them inside her moist warmth. "Hime," he murmured breathlessly, moving his fingers inside of her faster in time with her hushed moans and gasps.

"The kids will hear us," she whispered, wincing at a dangerously pleasurable stroke. Her hands shot out to rest on his arms and she whimpered, moaning her pleasure. "Ichigo...!".

He ignored her protest and instead removed his fingers for a taste of her, smirking at the blush of arousal that had spread over her lovely features, turning her into the sultry goddess he knew she could be. Her heaving chest was barely contained in her satin and lace balconette bra, her erected nipples threatening to spill over the cupline of the garment. "You're the hottest woman in town, you know that, right?" he throatily murmured, mouth suckling on the cup border of her left breast while his hands pulled down the straps of the bra. "I'm so lucky you're mine..."

She moaned in approval, arching her back to give him more access, wanting for him to ravage her more. He wasn't the only one who'd missed their intimacy. His lovemaking drove her mad with need, his touch the only one that turned her on this much. A content sigh escaped her swollen lips when his finally found her nipple and he took suckle, alternating between hard and soft tongue strokes. She reached for the back of her bra and took it off, pressing his face against her breast quickly after. "That's it..." she murmured, locking eyes with him as he continued to work his mouth and teeth on her nipple, making another shot of arousal pool in between her legs.

Ichigo moaned at the sound of her soft cry of pleasure, switching his attention to her other breast while he worked on the back of her skirt, pulling down its zipper. When it hit the floor he moved up her body to capture her lips a last time in a searing kiss before stepping away from her and watching her perfect, naked body step out of the pool of her clothes now gathered on the floor. She was still breathing heavily as she looked at him from the other side of the archway, taking off Zangetsu from his back and pulling his hakama loose. He approached her again, stepping out of the pants and taking her into his arms for another breath stealing kiss while she pulled his obi loose and pulled down the white leggings he wore underneath his gi. She let her hands run up his now naked chest, marveling at the sight of those toned muscles of his that made her mouth water.

Orihime gave in to her urge and planted her lips on the upper half of his chest, kissing her way down to a nipple and taking suckle before moving to the other, moaning in time with his wordless grunts of approval. She locked eyes with him wantonly before she continued her trip down his torso, lowering herself on her knees eagerly.

"You're so sexy, Hime..." he murmured breathlessly, mouth hanging slightly open as he stared at her lifting her breasts to rub against his raging erection, looking at him with a mixture of innocent wonder and lewd sexual desire. And then he almost lost it right then and there when she licked the tip of his head with a low moan, her small tongue flickering against his overheated skin with her milky white breasts holding his erection up in the background. "You're driving me insane..." he whispered, chuckling when she giggled.

"Can't wait to have you inside of me," she whispered encouragingly, eyes on his weeping hard-on before she took him into her mouth without warning, taking him as deep as she could, humming to herself as she did.

Both his palms hit the wall above them and he threw his head in his shoulders as he bit back a yell of how good her mouth felt around him, loving the contrast between her wet tongue and the soft, warm sensation of her breasts against his scrotum. And of course there were the sounds she was making that didn't help with his restraint.

Orihime pulled back and let him slip from her mouth when she felt him tense up, chuckling to herself. She knew her passionate husband well; he never lasted whenever she chose to pleasure him this way. She laughed when he grabbed her by her elbows and helped her on her feet effortlessly, sighing into the kiss that followed, wrapping her arms around his shoulders in anticipation of what she knew was next.

He smirked against her lips and took hold of the back of her upper thighs, lifting them up to go around his waist, inside the folds of the gi he was still wearing.

"Take me."

And he did, swiftly and hard, groaning in time with her surprised gasp, his fingers now digging into the flesh of her bare ass. "This was too long overdue..."

She arched her back in response, her body slightly quivering in his hold, a loving smile on her lips. "It's all yours..." she moaned breathlessly as he began to move.

"Hime..." he murmured in between her breasts, nuzzling her soft skin lazily while his hips worked in fast, whipping thrusts, his need for her only growing the more she softly cried his name and whispered encouraging words in his ear.

This was where they belonged, together, in love and devoted only to one and other. It'd been ten years and still nothing felt quite as right as when they made love, renewing their promises each time. The smallest of touches, the briefest of glances was enough to make their passions for each other run high, setting their desire aflame.

With each push of his manhood inside of her, her body was singing, lost in his unrelenting rhythm and cherishing every moment of it. Her trembling thighs pulled him closer, needing him deeper inside, to fill her up completely, to promise again and again that she was his, that there would never come an end to this ecstatic feeling of joy and bliss and that every caress of his calloused fingers were meant for her and her only. This was the purest way in which he showed her his love and need for her and she welcomed it open-hearted, greedily taking however much he could give her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she noted that the sounds they were making were borderline animalistic and that they needed to keep it down, but she couldn't. He made her feel all woman, from head to toe; she felt as desirable as she felt powerful and protected at the same time. His worship of her body made every fiber of her cry out for him.

The soft smacking of flesh against flesh echoed through the small archway as their cries of passion subsided and they worked hard to reach that coveted peak, wishing to climax close together.

Her flushed face was contorted in concentration with her mouth hanging open in a soundless gasp, her long brown hair sticking to her damp skin sexily. He wanted to keep looking at her, having found that watching her come undone turned him on to no end. He had to bit back a groan however when he felt her contract around him, indicating that she was precariously close. It wouldn't take much for him to join her and so he stopped trying to hold back and kissed her deeply, drinking in her mewling moans and savoring her throaty, wordless whimpers when rapture took her, letting her guide him through the maelstrom of their joint orgasmic experience.

"I love you," he murmured against her forehead afterwards, sitting on the bottom step of the archway with her sitting in his lap, clad in nothing but his black gi. He grinned at her drowsy response, caressing a kiss against her skin.

"Let's spend the day together tomorrow," Orihime whispered against his chest, smoothing the fabric of the white undergarment Ichigo was still wearing with a hand. The rest of their discarded clothing lay in a pile in her lap. "I promised Mamo-chan and Sora-chan that we'd go to the park. Join us."

Ichigo smiled at the thought of taking the day off with his family and nodded. "How about we go to that new amusement park by the beach? There's two of us, so you won't be overwhelmed."

Orihime lifted a skeptic eyebrow at that. "You think that you coming along will keep them from being overwhelming?"

He frowned amusedly and shrugged questioningly. "Yeah...?"

"Mamoru I can handle, he's the responsible and protective kind, just like you. Sora is the crazy one."

Ichigo laughed and tightened his hold on her. "Just like you?"

"He's a handful!" she concluded with an aggravated sigh, making him laugh harder. "When I picked him up from school this afternoon, he'd managed to glue his right hand to his hair. Again!"

"Wait, didn't he do it earlier this week too?" he chuckled, beginning to stand.

"He did it three times this week! His teacher is running out of places to hide the stuff..." she said, mentally sweatdropping. "Honestly... What made him not get it the first time? He almost has no hair left for me to cut the glue out from..."

Ichigo smirked softly, now rounding their dinner table and entering their welcoming hall to take the stairs to the first floor. "Sounds like it's been a long week."

"The longest..." she yawned, snuggling closer in his arms. "But tomorrow should make up for all of that crap..."

"It will," he replied, stepping onto the last step and turning into their hallway on his right. "I'll be there with you."

She smiled and nodded sleepily, already beginning to doze off.

He watched her fall asleep in front of the opened doorway to their room for a few moments before he pressed another loving kiss on her forehead and walked inside, shutting the door behind him.

On to the next one...

-BDP-