Gah! Cover your eyes kiddies - I'm being reckless again! Lemon alert...of course it's not really explicit as I never like to write anything that gives too much away, but I really hope you like the outcome of this one. Took me many days until I could finish it - although it's relatively short and one shot-ish

Hikaru and Lantis are the main protagonists of course, with a dash of Umi/Ascot on the side. Because I like these pairings very much! Wheeeee! (spins in circles happily) Read and review kiddies...or at least like it, will you? (grins)

Disblaimer: No one is mine. Especially Hikaru, Lantis, Umi and Ascot. Everything is property of Clamp! But you'll see many fics from me with these four in them...and maybe Fuu/Ferio too. If I get the urge.

Rating: Mature? Adult? Ahem...sex people. No real kiddies should read this. Even if it isn't explicit, I wouldn't want to be accused of corrupting young and brilliant minds. Mine packed and moved to the gutter a loooooong time ago.

Heat
by Royal blueKitsune

"I don't think this is going to work." A kiss, a shuffle. Her blouse fluttered noiselessly to her elbows and she hissed when he peppered kisses on her collarbone. Unhurried, tender.

She didn't protest when he shimmied her out of her skirt. Didn't voice out her fears when her bra followed.

He welcomed the shy tremble of her fingers as she undid his cape and slowly pushed his own clothes away. Felt a dark thrill when her delicate arms wrapped around his waist to find the small hook that opened his silver belt.

"Relax. I will not hurt you."

"I don't know about that. Nngh. W-we're not quite matched in size you know."

"There is no hurry," there was, actually, very much a hurry. But he would be patient. Tell himself that giving her more time before burying himself in her wouldn't kill him. Hope that it was true. "We have all night."

She scraped her nails against his stomach and he considered throwing his idealistic thoughts out a window. The guttural sound that emerged didn't sound like him at all.

"S-sorry! Did I hurt you? Are you alright?"

He kissed her. Angled his head down and pressed his lips against her hard and needy. Trying to get rid of the ache she had awakened in his belly.

"Oh." She practically breathed the word out and if he hadn't been so hard and aching and desperate, this would have definitely done the job. As it were, he contended himself with hauling her against him and tumbling them between the twisted sheets that smelled of lavender.

He needed to touch her. There was no if, no why, no stop. She was naked and he was naked and she'd just done the innocent mistake of wrapping her legs around his waist. He was going to touch her.

"Oh. Oh!." She hadn't known that anyone's mouth could be so hot, could feel so very good on her skin and send so many tingles through her limbs. Almost like lightning and fire rushing through her blood.

Her small toes curled and uncurled and her thighs quivered with the effort to stay still as his hands spanned her waist and his mouth latched unto her left breast greedily.

She threaded her hands through his beautiful, dark hair and called out his name and in response he scraped his teeth and almost sent her soaring. So good. So much. She hadn't expected this type of seduction; hadn't expected the desperation that came with it and the wonderful friction between their bodies.

"Please."

"Anything."

There were many words to choose from...but many weren't what she wanted and few seemed right.

Muscles bunched and tightened in his back as Hikaru pressed her fingers against them - savoring the feeling of power he exuded without even trying. He was so beautiful shrouded in darkness. She would never get enough of him.

"Touch me. Make love to me." She hoped that he would go mad with desire for her. Then she could go mad too and they could tangle in the sheets together and he would show her more of how much he wanted her too.

"Marry me," Lantis whispered quietly against the graceful column of her throat, tracing a path to her jaw and nibbling and sucking and...

"Silly. I already agreed to that, didn't I?" Hikaru purred against his ear with a barely suppressed smile. "That's tomorrow. But I can't wait..."

The brush between her legs was becoming more and more insistent and so was he. She would have been happy to just spiral out of control beneath his hands. Again and again and again.

"Neither can I." To hear his voice so husky, to feel his calloused palms sliding against her legs, him pressing harder above her, into her...

The shivery half moan, half sigh that escaped her was encouragement to his ears. And when she arched her body higher, all enticing curves and smooth skin, he could do little else but inhale her scent, tangle his fingers in her loose hair and take her higher.

Gods. Oh Gods. Oh Gods.

Hikaru needed to hold onto something. Needed to...Oh...needed something to anchor her to sanity. Her hands found immediate purchase in his hair but even that seemed to be not enough.

Her skin was bursting and, any moment now, Hikaru was sure that she was going to fall into the ceiling.

"Lantis!" It was almost too much to bear at once. A feeling that started from the very depths of her soul and threatened to rip her apart with the intensity of it. She hadn't expected it to be this way. "I-I can't..."

A desperate plea. To stop, to continue, to do more to her and all at once. Hikaru didn't know either.

He groaned in her ear and murmured something assuring - though she was too far away to hear - and carefully, painfully patient, slid into her more; until her entire body quivered with discomfort and something else...

Smooth and hot and impressive. She should have expected him to stretch her to the point where pain stopped and hazy pleasure began, because her hymen had long since lost battle with the harsh conditions and strenuous sword fighting sessions, but it was still all so new. Still - ouch. Ouch. It was probably going to hurt in the morning but who cared?

Her mouth went dry. She would've probably been horrified at her almost masochistic acceptance of pain...had her brain been able to think past anything but moremoremore.

"Oh God." she murmured into his hair, her mind still revolving around those words over and over again. A litany. "Lantis - "

Hikaru had decided. If Lantis stopped now, she'd kill him.

She pressed a kiss on his forehead and rewarded him with his name when he lifted her legs higher around his body and pushed forward in a languorous rocking motion.

For a man who spoke little and showed emotion even less, such natural sensuality seemed out of place. Hikaru thought - huff, pant - that he fit the role of a passionate lover just fine. Had she known that making love would feel this way, she might've jumped him that first night when he'd formally asked for her hand in marriage.

He slid to a stop, panting in her ear, and she sobbed in near frustration as she felt the impatient play of muscles against the tautness of her belly. Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop...Her skin was sensitive under his careful assault and she felt her body tightening of its own accord - like a bow ready to snap at any moment. It was a breathless type of abandon that had her squirming beneath him in eager expectation.

She wanted more. Even if it warmed her heart that he was willing to wait for her, test her reactions before doing anything that could cause unwanted harm, Hikaru needed him to fill an odd sort of emptiness that she hadn't known before - the type created by impatience, searching hands and greedy kisses. Closer and closer, harder and faster, deeper and deeper. There was no time to be skittish or shy...

Lantis moved - good very good against her, splaying his hands on the mattress and using the action as leverage to hit a spot - just theretherethere - that had her seeing bright spots and vague colors behind her shuttered eyelids.

He seemed to guide himself by her responses, because a moan was quickly followed by a roll of his hips...and then another...and another...

Was it supposed to feel this good?

Something in her belly tightened and twisted and created another of those annoyingly empty spots that only he could fill. And, of course, Lantis decided at that very moment that he wanted to sample her collarbone too. And what the man wanted, he got!

All without breaking that newly discovered ohhhh so satisfying rhythm. Not that she could complain too much when his blunt teeth found one of the many, uncharted until now, sensitive spots that made her knees wobbly and weak.

Oh my, oh my, oh my. She was so close to something...closer...almost - something so intense that Hikaru thought she might actually hurt from the intensity of it.

"Hikaru."

She cried out, flushing hotly under the intensity of his blue eyes, and jerked in his embrace, her vision blurring along the edges as her mind struggled to comprehend the almost overwhelming sensations that overtook it. Too much. Her body shook and trembled, clenched his almost painfully, and something snapped almost audibly inside her...

Sparks skated up her spine and sweat dripped between her breasts, legs twining further with his - pushing, thrashing and clenching to pull them closer, even closer - and Hikaru blushingly admired the beautiful euphoria etched on his features.

It had been her. She'd been the one he'd trusted to see this one intimate aspect of his life...she who'd brought him this blissful pleasure.

The bedding protested under their combined weights, seeing as how neither cared much about gently settling down, but Hikaru was too tired to care anymore. Or perhaps simply too content to move. Happy to just cradle his head on her bosom and play with the black wisps of hair she loved so much; luxuriating in the aftermath with him.

"Lantis?"

"Hmmmm..."

Hikaru blinked owlishly, feeling sleep press on her eyelids, and wished she could see his expression. He sounded a bit too much like a sated...cat.

"You're not having any second thoughts about marrying me tomorrow, are you?"

Lantis could've laughed at that very instant. It was such a Hikaru-like action - to worry of all possible things. He should have seen it coming from her of all women.

"Hikaru, you would not be able to escape me anymore even if you tried." His arms shook slightly as he pushed himself upwards and dropped to her side, pulling her to rest on his chest. She smelled good - nature, warmth and him. Lantis smiled to himself and nuzzled the top of her head, listening to her yawn. "Rest. You will need your strength in the morning."

"Arrogant," She mumbled, sounding sleepy even to herself. "I'm not tired."

Which was why, Lantis thought feeling distinctly amused, she was already dozing off in his arms.

His silly Fire Knight.

He pulled the covers up to ward off the chill and followed her mere moments later.

Umi grumbled to herself, clothes tousled, hair in disarray, expression an almost piteous combination of sleepiness and disgruntled disbelief. At least it would've seemed so to any other person, had he or she been able to see it.

Unfortunately though, it was the middle of the night and normal Cephirean inhabitants slept at such ungodly hours. How strange - Umi thought sarcastically - wasn't it?

Because Hikaru and Lantis definitely weren't sleeping. Nooooooo...that would've been too mundane an activity before their wedding night.

She crossed her arms, feeling her left eye twitch at having been so covertly thrown out of her room - actually she'd stormed out considering the fact that her room was right next to Hikaru's but who in God's name cared about technicalities anyway?

"Just to make this clear...I'm not the type of girl to just storm into a man's room in the middle of the night and demand things of him! Lest of all a place in his bed."

A chuckle. "I don't mind sleeping on the floor for one night, Umi. I've seen worse."

The Knight of Water groaned and contemplated suffocating herself with the pillow. "That doesn't make me feel any better, Ascot. We've just started dating and I'm already treating you like a rag. And, really, I don't know how I'll be able to look at the lot of them tomorrow. Try again."

Ascot could only be thankful for the darkness that hid his embarrassment, because what he was going to say was going to sound outrageously Umi-ish. "At least Hikaru and Lantis are happy?"

He should've expected the flying pillow that followed that particular comment.

End.

Told you to look away didn't I? Quirky mind at work here. Would like to know if I corrupted anyone!