Alright, chapter 7. I'm sorry for the delay. This is one of my shorter chapters, but that's because the next one will be filled with the action you all want... I hope.

Chapter 7

Kagome pouted as she watched Sesshomaru go off to his dressing room after Kagura had pulled him away. She couldn't believe she had actually said what she had out loud. She blushed every time one of the other models whistled at her and that was quite often. She honestly didn't know how the rest of her body was still functioning with all of the blood rushing to her face.

After Shippo finished his shoot he sat down next to her on the couch.

"It's ok Kagome. By tomorrow all of the guy's will have forgotten what you said, at least they will if you aren't here to remind them," he said helpfully. Or at least what he thought was helpfully.

"Thanks a lot Shippo. I feel so much better now," Kagome muttered softly and turned her head to glare at him. He blushed and made an excuse to scurry off and leave her in embarrassed misery. She heard footsteps and then a throat clear. She tried to ignore whoever it was but when the throat cleared again she looked up and found herself staring into the smiling face of Naraku. Kagome shivered at his smile. It was the same smile he'd had before that gave her the creeps.

"Well hello there again, Kagome. I must say that was quite a stir you caused earlier." Naraku sat down next to her on the couch, a little bit too close for comfort. Kagome subtly scooted away from him with a forced smile on her face. She couldn't help but notice that he tried to be just as subtle in his own scooting as close to her as he could without it being totally obvious. When Kagome was at the end of the couch with no where left to go but the other direction, which would land her straight onto the man's lap, she gave up.

"I'm actually trying to forget what I did. It's embarrassing enough without everyone coming and telling me." Kagome turned her head slightly to keep a wary eye on Naraku as she made herself keep up the appearance that everything was fine.

"Oh, but it was most amusing to hear. I wouldn't mind seeing it either," Naraku whispered softly. Kagome whipped her head toward him and stared at him with wide eyes. He had a horrible smile on his face. "Of course, it would be such a shame to have to tell Inuyasha of your little deceit," he added as she opened her mouth to scream a denial at him. She gasped softly and narrowed her eyes.

"Are you threatening to blow our cover if I don't…" She wasn't able to finish the sentence as the look on his face gave her answer enough.

"That includes leaving Sesshomaru out of it as well. You are a beautiful girl Kagome. I would hate to have something happen to that face of yours if you did decide to deny me." He stood suddenly and left her alone to think on his words as he called Kagura to him. The woman gave Kagome a narrow eyed look as she handed Naraku his camera. Kagome stared after the two siblings in shock as she tried, barely succeeding, to keep her breath even and stop herself from freaking out and running, screaming out of the studio.

Minutes, maybe even hours later, Sesshomaru finished his shoot and sat gracefully next to Kagome on the couch, where she had been sitting in the same position staring blankly at the wall since Naraku had left her. She ignored him; completely lost in her own mind, dreading what the man could do to her if she did indeed deny him.

Sesshomaru tapped Kagome's shoulder and she slowly turned her head toward him. Sesshomaru thought that the sound of a creaking door would be the perfect sound effect for the movement. Kagome blinked with an eerily blank gaze, making Sesshomaru uneasy. "Kagome?" he asked softly. He watched, fascinated as the normal light in her beautiful blue eyes slowly returned and she smiled at him.

"Finished so soon, Sesshomaru?" she asked. He nodded, frowning at her. Her smile seemed a little forced and she was moving in a stiff way as she got to her feet.

"Is everything alright Kagome? You're acting a little strange," he asked in concern. Kagome smiled brightly at him.

"Everything's absolutely fine." She turned and headed for the exit of the studio.

"Goodbye, Sesshomaru. Kagome. I hope to see you again soon." Kagome stopped in her tracks and stiffened at the sound of Naraku's voice bidding them farewell. Sesshomaru frowned. He had a feeling that there was something going on that Kagome wasn't telling him, and he knew that it was going to be difficult to find out what it was.

He murmured an answering goodbye to Naraku, and taking Kagome's arm, led her out of the building and toward his car. He helped her in and went around the other side. As he started the car he found Kagome brooding in her seat, staring at the glove compartment while her thoughts swam in her head. He sighed as he backed out of the parking lot and then smiled as he decided to take a quick detour before taking her home.

Kagome looked up when Sesshomaru parked the car and frowned when she didn't recognize the surroundings as belonging to her home. She looked at him questioningly when he came around the car to open her door for her. He pointed upwards and she tilted her head back to see a sign that said "Baskin Robins". She blinked at Sesshomaru as he grabbed her hand and easily dragged her inside the ice cream shop.

They exited moments later with ice cream cones in their hands. Sesshomaru was eating Rocky Road and Kagome had Strawberry Cheesecake. They sat on one of the little benches outside of the shop and Kagome smiled at him.

"Thank you Sesshomaru. I needed this."

"I could tell. You looked so gloomy I wouldn't have been surprised to find your own personal storm cloud raining on your head," Sesshomaru teased. Kagome snorted as she bit into the cone. Some of the ice cream got onto her cheek and Sesshomaru grinned. "You have some ice cream on your cheek. Let me get that for you." He leaned forward before she could say anything, tilted her head to the side, his fingers lightly turning her by her chin, and licked the ice cream off her cheek. She gasped and he pulled away, grinning wickedly.

"Very tasty, and I don't just mean the ice cream," Sesshomaru said and licked his lips. He was happy to see Kagome blush a bright red and knew she would be ok for now.


He dropped her off at her house and went home after making sure she got to her front door safely. Now it was time to figure out what exactly had caused her to act so strangely at the studio. She'd been fine when he'd left her if a little bit more embarrassed than normal. She'd been fine when he saw her talking to Shippo. It was only after he'd seen Naraku leave her that he'd noticed something strange. Sesshomaru clenched his jaw and his eyes turned cold and hard. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what was going on. Now it was only to wait until the right moment to call the man out on it.


Kagome watched Sesshomaru leave through the curtain by the front door and gave a loud sigh of relief when he was out of sight, and she slid down the wall to the floor and bringing her knees up to her chest, rested her head against them and began to cry.

She was being blackmailed and she couldn't even tell anyone about it. Naraku was a demon and would probably know she defied him the second she did so. She thought about the different scenarios she could take and all of them led back to her being hurt by telling someone what was going on. She even thought of just giving someone clues to hint at the problem but she was still technically telling them. There was absolutely nothing she could do but go along with what Naraku wanted and hope that Sesshomaru didn't find out and neither did Inuyasha.

Kagome knew for a fact that even if she did do what Naraku wanted he wouldn't stop. He would use Project: Suffer Inuyasha to blackmail her for as long as it was around, and as they hadn't even gotten close to their goal with it, that was going to be a while. She stood up with a sigh and went quietly up to her room and did her homework. Once she was done she went downstairs to tell her mom she was going to bed early and went back up to her room and fell asleep.

Kagome was woken up by Sesshomaru the next morning. He was sitting on the edge of her bed and lightly shaking her as he called her name. Kagome opened her eyes and looked up at him blearily as she sat up in her bed. The second she was fully aware and awake she honed in on the concern in Sesshomaru's eyes.

"Kagome, your mom said you went to bed early last night and that you were acting rather strange. What's going on? You can tell me." Sesshomaru stared at her intensely. Kagome looked back at him wanting to blurt out everything that Naraku had said but she held back and bit her lip to keep from crying as she forced herself to smile and lie to him.

"Nothing's going on. I was just really tired is all." She shrugged and climbed over him to get to her dresser and grabbed up some underwear and her freshly washed uniform. It was one of the designated days. She ran to the bathroom to avoid any more questions and took a quick shower before going back to her room and getting dressed as slowly as she could, again to avoid him being able to ask her questions.

Luckily for Kagome he hadn't been in her room when she'd come back from her shower and was able to successfully pull off her avoid tactic. But that all changed when she went downstairs to the kitchen. Sesshomaru was sitting in a chair facing the door through which Kagome entered the room, a stony expression on his face, a piece of toast in front of him completely untouched.

She avoided his gaze as she grabbed a poptart and scarfed it down. Sesshomaru stood up as she finished it off and said goodbye to Souta and walked out of the house to his car, leaving Kagome to follow behind him. He stayed silent the entire ride to school, completely ignoring her, and acted like a stone statue throughout the day. Kouga even went to the school and tried to get her to go out with him and Sesshomaru pretended he wasn't even there. Kagome really couldn't tell if he was simply lost in thought or purposefully ignoring her to get her to tell him what was wrong. She should have known he was too intuitive to let it go with a simple "I'm fine".

After school Sesshomaru took Kagome to the studio without a word, not even telling her he was going to. When Kagome realized where they were going she felt her whole body tense and fear take over. At the moment the fear came Sesshomaru almost made her fly through the windshield as he slammed his foot on the break and whipped his head toward her. Kagome looked at him wide-eyed and watched his nostrils flare and his eyes flash red. He then suddenly turned back to the road and the honking cars behind him, stepped on the gas and continued on like nothing had just happened.

When they got there Sesshomaru went straight into the building, leaving Kagome to do whatever. He'd even left the doors unlocked. She frowned as she got out and manually locked the doors and followed him inside. She went straight to Shippo's dressing room after seeing Sesshomaru being taken care of.

"Hi, Kagome. What's going on?" Shippo smiled at her as his makeup artist put powder on his face with a brush. Kagome bit her lip as she looked at him.

"Sesshomaru's acting really strange. I've never seen him like this before and I've known him for a long time now. I can't tell if he's just deep in thought or if he's purposely ignoring me and acting distant because I didn't tell him the truth this morning."

"Well, if it's because you didn't tell him the truth I'm sure he would have asked you why you were lying."

"But I can't tell him Shippo! I really really can't!" Shippo looked at her wide-eyed as she began to cry. He shooed the makeup artist away and turned in his chair to face Kagome. After pulling her closer to him he wrapped his arms around her and she cried into his shoulder.

"Don't cry Kagome. I'm sure everything will be fine."

"I hope you're right," she mumbled. Shippo patted her back and she pulled away and began wiping the tears off her face.

"I have to go to my shoot, but you can come with me and watch if you want." He smiled happily at her and Kagome couldn't stop a little laugh.

"I wish I could Shippo, but it'd probably be smart to stay in Sesshomaru's sight. I don't want him any angrier at me than he might be now. I'll see you later." Kagome hugged him goodbye and went to the couch that gave her a view of Sesshomaru's shooting area. He was standing stiff as a board in front of the screen, glaring down at Kagura as she adjusted his clothing.

Kagome stiffened as she felt a familiar presence sit next to her. She curled her fingers into her palms and pushed her nails into the skin to keep herself from fainting in fear. She was staring at Sesshomaru and saw his head come up and his eyes meet hers. For a moment his eyes flashed red and smoldered in anger but in the blink of an eye it was gone and he looked back down. Kagome thought after that it must have been a figment of her imagination.

"Hello again Kagome. You must have missed me to come back so soon." Naraku leaned in toward her, his breath hot on her ear. Kagome shivered and really wanted to run screaming out of the studio, or better yet behind Sesshomaru. Instead she simply pushed her fingernails further into the flesh of her palms and decided to play along.

Kagome made herself relax except for her hands and put a sweet smile on her face. She turned to Naraku and found them only inches away from each other. "You have no idea. I was thinking last night about what you said and I've decided that I would love for you to see what I'm wearing underneath my skirt."

"That's good to hear Kagome. Though I intend to go even further than that with you, my dear." Naraku ran a finger down her bare arm, making Kagome shiver again, and goose bumps formed on her skin.

"Of course Naraku. I didn't expect anything less." The man grinned at her in approval.

"Well then, why don't we just plan a time where we can… get to know each other better?"

"Tomorrow night. I'll meet you here." Kagome uncurled her left hand and ran it along Naraku's thigh as she looked into his eerie red eyes and bit her lip seductively. She saw desire spark deep in them and heard an almost inaudible gasp at her touch.

"Then I'll see you at eight. Do not be late, or else." He stood up abruptly, Kagome's hand sliding off his thigh and dropping in her lap. She watched him walk toward Sesshomaru who was staring at her, and this time she knew the anger she saw was real. She bit her lip and looked away to keep him from seeing her tears. As she began to uncurl her right hand she felt a stinging pain and gave a sharp laugh as she saw that her nails had punctured the skin and created little bloody crescent shapes in the middle of her palm. Her left hand had the crescents but the skin hadn't been broken.

She closed her eyes as she sat there and fell asleep; trying not to think about what Naraku would do to her. She screamed and woke up, looking around at unfamiliar surroundings that were moving. She was gasping as she realized she was in Sesshomaru's car and turned her head to see him staring stonily at the road, ignoring her completely. Kagome bit her lip for the umpteenth time and looked away out the window.

Sesshomaru stopped the car in front of the steps that led up to the shrine and walked around the car to help her out in silence. He walked her to her front door and spoke kindly to her mother before turning around and leaving the way he came. Kagome watched him go with tears in her eyes. She didn't understand what was wrong with him, she didn't think he knew what was happening, but then if he did she couldn't get in trouble, as she hadn't said a word. Again that night she went to bed early, dreading what she was going to do the next day.

The next morning she woke up screaming. Sesshomaru was sitting on her pink computer chair watching her. She looked at him and he still had that empty expression on his face. She watched in shock as he simply stood up and began to leave her room. Kagome forgot about everything else as she looked at him determinedly.

"You're being a jackass."

She almost laughed as Sesshomaru left the room and suddenly his hand appeared around the doorframe, his index finger pointed up to make a one.


Please review, and thank you for reading. Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu!