Great Ambitions

by Cryptographic DeLurk

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He'd gotten close enough that the tip of her nose brushed his, before she turned away. She ducked her head down, and hid her blush as he pressed a kiss to the bridge of her nose instead, close to where the socket of her eye dipped in.

"I should get going," Mai laughed softly, she unravelled his arm from where it was snaked beneath her tank-top and under her breasts. "Need to meet with my sponsors in a couple of hours." She scooted away on the mattress, without looking at him.

She seemed keenly aware that he was looking at her, though. He slumped forward on the mattress sulkily, and watched her adjust the lace trim of her undies. She paced back and forth in the room, and fiddled with the radio on the nightstand - turned down the soft hum of smooth jazz. She got her earrings from the table - big silver loops with amethysts striped across the sides and bent over as she looked in the mirror to put them on.

"Aren't you going to get up?" She turned, with her hands on her hips, and the beginning of a smug grin on her face. When Jounouchi puffed his cheeks defiantly and didn't say anything, she tossed him the remote for the hotel's TV. "Fine," she agreed. "I'm not paying the difference if you're late for check out though."

It hadn't seemed important at first. He'd thought it had just been coincidence - a weird result of what their favourite sex positions were. But he'd been trying to steal a kiss for the last three weeks now, and that his plans had been foiled at every turn proved this was by design. She'd kissed his forehead and cheek and elbow and the hairy underside of his scrotum. Surely his breath couldn't smell that bad.

He hated this. He hated that he was going to have to actually talk to her about it, ask out loud. He felt a little pathetic, and a little like he was playing directly into her hand. He already knew she liked him begging.

"Mai? Why won't you kiss me?"

Mai paused briefly, as she ran mousse through her hair. "What do you mean?" she asked. "I kiss you."

"No, you don't," Jounouchi said. "Not how I knew you meant it." He looked down, and twirled the bedsheet around his finger.

He didn't think Mai was going to respond. But then, after a moment, she did.

"I guess… It's a habit, I guess?" she began. "A rule? I mean, it was more of a hard-and-fast rule when it first came up… But I kind of adopted it from there on out. It helps to stop people from getting the wrong impression."

"The wrong impression?" Jounouchi asked.

"That you're more serious about them than you are." Mai shrugged, then sighed. "Not that you- I'd just gotten used to it after a while. It doesn't mean anything anymore. I'm just used to not kissing."

Mai twirled her hair around a round comb, to bring out the curls. Jounouchi could only see a sliver of her face in the reflection in the mirror - but, from there, her expression looked solemn and tired.

This was depressing. He could either ask her how serious she was about him, or ask about her previous partners, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear what she had to say about either.

"Have you kissed anyone before, Jounouchi?" Mai asked.

This, if anything, was worse. He didn't want to sound like an inexperienced twit. And he was still reeling from his last lie on this topic - and that had been only half-a-lie. He had technically been a virgin at least. On the other hand, if he admitted he had kissed someone before, he might have to tell her who he had kissed. And Honda might kill him for airing their dirty laundry.

He wondered, frantically, what answer would put Mai most at ease.

"No?" he tried.

Wrong answer. Mai sighed, heavily. She muttered something under her breath. Maybe in Hungarian? Not in Japanese, at least.

"C'mon, Mai!" he prompted. He sat up on the edge of the bed, and extended his arms. "Be nice! Kiss me already!" He made smooching sounds.

Mai sighed. But she slapped her brush down on the table. She glared at the mirror, and gave her hair one last toss, before walking back over to him.

Her face seemed pretty red, as she scooted up to sit on the bed next to him. She pressed her kneecaps to his and leaned forward, and paused.

"Be nice, he says," she mocked. "You be nice. This is new for me too."

Jounouchi was pretty sure he knew what she meant, but he wanted to see if he could get her to say it.

"What? You've never kissed anyone, either?" he snickered facetiously.

"Don't be an idiot." Her voice had more than a little bite.

She glared intensely down at where she was massaging his thighs with her hands. She scooted closer.

When she turned her face up, her cheeks were flushed red, and her eyes were squinting like she was looking at the sun. She pressed two kisses to his face in quick succession. One up on the forehead, and one on the lips.

Jounouchi giggled. He seized her face and licked at her lips. He pried her jaw open at the corner with his thumb and pressed his tongue up along the backside of her upper row of teeth.

She kissed back for a couple seconds, and then bit at his tongue to get him to stop. Jounouchi leaned back. He pressed the backside of his hand up against it, to sooth the sting.

He smiled at her, and Mai smiled back, a bit more inhibited.

"Happy, Jounouchi?" she asked.

"Yea~" he grinned.

"Good," Mai agreed. She kissed him again on the cheek, and flounced off the bed.

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