She was so young. It was a thought Kakashi had sometimes, especially when he ran his tongue up her neck and felt the soft flesh of youth. She was so young and he was so old and this was so wrong, wrong, wrong. But he couldn't stop himself. Didn't want to stop himself.
"Kakashi." She breathed a moan, arching against him.
He replied by dragging his teeth over her jugular, both hands resting on the sides of her neck to hold her head still.
"Hmm?" He hummed tauntingly, knowing it drove her mad.
As if to prove him right she groaned trying to escape his hold to move. He kept her pressed fast against the wall and she moaned again, trying to run her hands up his chest. He grinned and pressed a kiss under her jaw, looking up at her closed eyes and her face etched in want, each breath coming out as a pant.
It was inevitable he sometimes though, as he wondered how he had never seen it coming. She would never let him slip off into the background, never let him live his life alone after she had met him. Gai had let him do so even though they were friends, even though he practically attacked Kakashi with that friendship every time Kakashi emerged of his own free will. But she wouldn't wait for him to emerge on his own like Gai. She would come barging in whenever she felt like it or felt like he needed it. His traps and security had kept her out while she was younger, but she grew stronger and trickier until one day she could bypass anything he set up.
She'd come slipping in his window at noon to wake him and drag him for lunch. Or he'd walk into his kitchen to get food and find her cooking dinner. When he ran out of fresh fruit she seemed to instinctively know, appearing at his side to drag him to the market. It was because of her he had attended his first festival in nearly a decade. If there was a get together she would hunt him down no matter where he hid and drag him away. If he returned from a mission and escaped the hospital she'd be waiting, knowing exactly where it hurt.
He had never resisted his feelings he supposed, so it was partially his fault.
When she had started showing such care he knew it was all platonic to her mind. But he started to see it in a different light and soon enough he wanted. Kakashi knew restraint. But he also knew patience and want and manipulation. He employed all the latter and not the former. When he decided he wanted her he used all the skills in his arsenal till he had her.
It was months of subtle body language and endearing himself to her further. It was hours of smiling at her and listening and talking. It was nights spent doing menial things like watching movies and playing games. It was hundreds of fleeting looks and lingering touches. It was times of searching her out and engaging her instead of the other way around.
It had worked of course, because in the end she had come to him, panting with want and need and thought it was all her. She had thought he did not like her like that and she was the one who liked him.
Some might call it seduction. He knew it was just manipulation. He had manipulated her into thinking of only him, of liking only him, of needing only him.
He had never been prouder of himself as the day she came to his door and kissed him and told him she loved him and she understood if he never wanted to see her again. He had swept her inside, into his arms and showered her with all he had been holding back for years. She had moaned and whimpered and held on so tight he nearly bled. She had grasped him like she had been the one trying to catch him and had finally caught him.
There had been protests of course. The Hokage had personally glared at him and grit her teeth and threatened his life. Her friend had come with the warning that if he screwed up his mind would never again be the same. Some had congratulated him with smiles but they were few and far between. Most people didn't understand how they of all people had snapped together.
Kakashi had won, that was all he cared for and he held onto his prize with all the tenderness and love he could muster. It was selfish of him he knew to have manipulated her, but there had been no tricks in his words or moves. He had wanted her not as a trophy or an item to admire then toss away. Kakashi always played for keeps. He loved her he had decided long ago, long before he started his subtle manipulations.
And when she lay beside him, snuggling into him, a smile on her face and her eyes only on him Kakashi decided that he didn't care if this was wrong or right or somewhere in between. He only cared for the girl in his arms and the light in her eyes and he'd die for both.
When she whispered that she had loved him for years and years, long before his manipulations had started, he had blinked in surprise. She had looked away and admitted she'd used all her training to try and seduce him and had been quiet sure it hadn't worked. She was angry when he laughed, not knowing why he found amusement in her dark confession. Kakashi wondered who had loved who first. He wondered who had been manipulating who and found he did not care at all.
Instead he hugged her close and ran his tongue back up her neck, running it over that spot that made her give a delicious, throaty noise that never failed to make his blood pump faster.
People still often wondered how he had gotten together with Haruno Sakura of all people. He thought of the day he had first met her and Naruto and Sasuke sitting in a classroom. He thought of Sasuke abandoning the village. He thought of Naruto running off, mind consumed with becoming strong enough to bring Sasuke back. He thought of the fact that he and Sakura had been left behind by their team. He thought of the fact that she had refused to give up her last team member. He remembered his own determination that his team was the most important thing in the world.
Kakashi resisted the urge to smile and say it had been inevitable.
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THE END
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