CHAPTER 7: She Followed Her Instincts
Hours passed before Ulquiorra peeked into the loft once to see Orihime's round ass on his bed. He really hated life. He did. He was an absolute glutton for punishment. What had he expected when he poked his head up there? As quietly as he could, he climbed the rest of the way up and frowned. She was wearing his clothes. Awesome.
He'd have to burn that shirt and the other stuff she had taken. There was no way he was going to drive himself crazy by keeping it. With a sigh, he flipped the blanket that was folded at the end of the bed over her and then sat down on the edge.
This was just like it was back in Hueco Mundo. He'd enter her room while she was asleep and stare at her or he'd watch her from the monitors. Not that she did much. Occasionally, she'd twitch or whimper. A couple of times, she had called out but it had been nothing major. She looked as beautiful as she did back then. Maybe her face was a bit more mature or her frown more prominent.
She wasn't the same girl he had kidnapped years ago. He reached over with a pale hand and brushed some hair off her face.
She hummed softly at the gentle touch at her brow and reached for it, finding fingers and threading her own through them, then pulling both her hand and his up under her chin and dozing off again.
Ulquiorra raised an eyebrow at her, although she couldn't see it. He stayed there for a moment or two before he reached with his other hand to pry her fingers off his. This would be really awkward to explain once she woke up. It was better if he untangled himself as fast as he could.
She felt the tug at her fingers and her brow wrinkled as she groaned in protest. "Come back," she murmured. She opened her eyes and saw worried green ones peering back at her. She gave him a lazy half smile and closed her eyes again. "Really, Ulquiorra, I'm not going to bite. I'm sorry about snapping at you earlier."
"I deserved it," he stated. He gave a sigh. "Scoot over. You're in my spot."
She grinned and shimmied toward the opposite edge of the bed.
He lied. He slept in the middle of the bed but it was cute how she made room for him. Once he got himself situated, lying on his back, Ulquiorra tugged on her arm. "Get back over here, Woman."
She chuckled and rolled into his chest, letting one arm stay under her head and the other fall over his side. She inhaled. His scent was not what she had expected.
A mixture of eucalyptus and cedar, with maybe a hint of something like clean leather and sandalwood. It smelled subtle and luxurious and fresh. She needed more of it. She brought her nose closer and took an obvious, enthusiastic sniff.
"What are you doing?" He asked with a confused expression on his face. "I shouldn't stink. I took a shower."
"I wouldn't be doing this if you stunk. Is this some kind of soap or cologne? It's amazing." She didn't look up but kept taking deep breaths through her nose and holding them, trying to identify, analyze and memorize the fragrance.
"Uh, it's shampoo and conditioner and soap. I get it online." Ulquiorra was a little weirded out whenever someone mentioned how he smelled.
"Well whatever you do, keep getting it," she said, adding an unintelligible vocalization that sounded appreciative. "Seriously," she said in a tone that was perfectly serious as well.
The way she was burying her face into his body and clothes was making him aroused. He didn't need that right now. "You want me to get you some of it so you can carry it around in your bag? Whenever you miss me you could pull it out." He was teasing her.
She pulled her head up to look him in the eyes. "Yes, please!" she responded, nodding enthusiastically. "I…" She paused and then propped her head up on the elbow that had been under her head so she could look down at his face. "I would pay you back, of course," she said with a shy tone, her cheeks slightly flushed and brushing some of his long hair off of his neck. It looked uncomfortable. She absently wondered why he kept it so long, then paused. There was a mark on his neck. Was that—? "Is that a tattoo?" she asked, surprised.
He did not like people playing with his hair. It must have come from his days as an Arrancar because one side of his head, the hair moved freely; the other side, not so much. It bothered him when people even touched his head. Ulquiorra lifted his head pulled those long black locks from under his head and back then turned to look at her.
Why would she ask that-Oh… Ever since he knew Orihime in this lifetime, he had managed to completely cover himself from neck to wrists. "Yeah. I've got a lot of tattoos," he answered and then quickly covered the one on his neck with his hair again.
Oh. Oh. Oh was that how it was going to be? He was going to play coy? "How many?" she asked, excited to learn more.
"Around twenty. I get a couple every time I sell some paintings." Ulquiorra frowned at her. There was no way she was even going to see the ink he had. He might reveal one or two of them but that was it.
"So… Ulquiorra…" she started, looking at the sheet and tracing a figure eight into the surface as she stalled. "...are you going to tell me why you have the kanji for Princess on your neck?"
"Why do you think?" he replied. Ulquiorra sat up on the bed and swept his hair to the other side of his neck. "Get an eyeful of it if you want."
She was excited. She had known people with tattoos before, obviously. Renji was covered with them. Ulquiorra had one when she was first taken. But this was the first time she was invited to take a close look. And she took full advantage. She rose up on her knees and brought her hands to his shoulders to steady herself as she peered at his neck. She hummed as she admired it. "I like it," she said noncommittally.
He had to refrain from rolling his eyes at her statement. He didn't get the tattoos he had to see if other people would like them. Each of the pieces of art on his body meant something to him. Ulquiorra shook his head and let his hair fall back into place. "So why do you think I have it?"
"Well, I have two ideas. One is very self-important and the other is a bit funnier. Which do you want to hear?"
"Both? The self-important reason first, though," Ulquiorra replied. Without warning, he dragged Orihime into his lap and gave her a smirk. "Then you can tell me the funny one."
Her face quickly colored and she swallowed hard. Her mouth was dry, and when she tried to speak, her breath caught in her throat. "Ahem, well, uh, the self-important reason is pretty self-explanatory, you got it to remind you of me?" she said.
He nodded. "The funny reason why you think I got it?"
"You think of yourself as the prettiest royalty?"
He scoffed and did it loudly. Ulquiorra glared at her but he didn't put any malice behind it. "I got it because of you. All the tattoos I got because of you… Except for three of them but that's due to the fact that I read this book and the passage kind of stuck with me."
"What book?" She was totally curious; she wanted to know everything.
"A stupid poetry book; had a cat, an owl, and a boat. Some guy was reciting poetry one night and it kind of stuck with me. I bought the book and read it," Ulquiorra said then licked his lips. He could feel his face and ears getting hot. He'd never told anyone so much about himself in either of the lives he had led.
"I know that poem, I think. The Owl and the Pussycat, right? I love that one," she beamed at his pink cheeks. He was being adorable. "Can I see them?"
"No. Maybe one of these days you might but the only time I show off my tattoos is if I'm getting naked," he stated.
She raised her eyebrows and tsked. "Oh is that so? And here I thought I was seducing you?"
He mimicked her expression. "I'll show you the ones that don't require me to take my clothes off." Ulquiorra pushed the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and held his arms out. On his right arm, there was a small heart shape on his hand between his thumb and index finger. The other tattoo on that side was the blacked out shape of the hilt of Murcielago. Then he had an origami paper boat colored with pea-green ink near his elbow.
The other arm had a cross on the side of his hand, the bat tattoo near his wrist and then some wicked looking script on his forearm. It spelled out, "Luz de la Luna" .
Her eye traced the shapes and letters marking his skin. Each of these seemed to hold great significance to him. "These are really quite beautiful, Ulquiorra," she said softly as she admired them. Then she looked up to his face. It was a warm, human face with Ulquiorra's features. It was a face that smelled good, a face that was a nice neighbor. A face that professed to have spent the past four years being in love with her. She got lost in that thought for a moment, then, as she was inclined to do, she followed her instincts.
She kissed him.
Ulquiorra froze for a second before he realized what the hell was going on. She was kissing him. She was voluntarily kissing him. It wasn't all on his end. Within the next second, he was kissing her back, pulling her body tight against his. He ran his hands up and down her back and over her ass, touching what he could. His fingers even found their way under the shirt she was wearing.
She knew she was asking for trouble. She didn't care. She was going to ask for seconds and thirds. She had never in her life felt this way before, so electrified by a kiss or a caress; she was not at all interested in stopping anytime soon.
She pressed into his mouth with more intensity and whimpered through her nose as he allowed her to wrap her arms around his neck. She stopped kissing him for just a split second, just long enough to whisper his name; to let him know that she knew who he was, before diving back into it.
Damn this woman. He could feel himself start to get hard. She was too good at what she was doing and she was letting him touch her. Since he was feeling bold and getting his way, he slowly let his hands slip under the band of the pair of boxer-briefs she had borrowed from him. Her skin felt smooth under his fingertips. She didn't seem to mind the intrusion.
His interpretation was correct. She hummed into his mouth as he touched her, and she opened her lips wide enough to gasp into his mouth when he gave an experimental squeeze.
He would have had the notion to chuckle at that had he had any blood left in his damn brain. It all seemed to pool in his lap. He liked how she sounded. He liked how she opened for him. Ulquiorra used his other hand to push down the borrowed clothing she had on and then squeezed her ass again, this time with both hands.
She groaned. God, she wanted him. She was finding it increasingly difficult to take a full breath. She stole his instead as she used her tongue to trace the shape of his upper lip and gave her hips an experimental roll toward his.
Oh. Oh. This was pleasurable.
Ulquiorra growled, his baritone voice rumbled through his chest. All he wanted to do was take her clothes off and have at her body. He knew that was unrealistic and probably could be put in the really bad fucking idea column. Instead, he fell back onto the bed, taking her with him, pushing his hips up and against her. Two could play at this game.
She cried out when he thrusted against her. Yeah, there were several layers of clothing between them, but she could literally feel his desire, and as much as it scared her, she wanted to see where this could go. She pushed his hair to the side again and kissed the princess tattoo on his neck.
A groan left him this time. This woman seemed to know how to slam all of the buttons he had down. He was turned on. He wanted this. "Fuck, Woman. Fuck, do that again." Ulquiorra bit his lip to keep from saying anything else.
She smiled and a small laugh came out close to his ear before she brought her mouth back down to his neck, gently kissing the tattoo, then flicking her tongue out to taste it. His skin was so warm and soft as it stretched over the cords on his neck. She wanted to feel more of that. She used her free hand to stroke the other side of his neck as she lavished attention onto the mark in her honor.
Ulquiorra rolled his hips against her again and again. This felt way too good to stop. He didn't want to stop. His hands kept moving lower, over the curve of her ass. His judgment was being clouded by lust, he let a hand brush the skin between her legs.
Her mouth seemed attached to his neck now, sucking and kissing at the skin. He had let no woman touch him like she was touching him. Ulquiorra always made sure to let the women know that what they did was just fucking and they wouldn't be kissing. They wouldn't be cuddling. With Orihime, this felt completely different. He was on a different plane of bliss with her. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to hold her. He wanted to do much more than just fuck her.
She kissed her way back to his mouth and weaseled her tongue into his mouth, only to coax his into hers so she could suck on it. Her hips started to find a rhythm with his, and she felt heat rising between her legs. Her breathing became labored as they continued but she had no intention of taking a break. Her hands found their way into his hair as she pulled his head, keeping it in contact with her as she moved. She did not want to break this touch. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was aware that to do so would be to invite doubt or regret from at least one of them, if not both.
His brain seemed to melt as they found each other's lips again. She was touching him and Ulquiorra moaned at the slight pull in his hair. That wasn't supposed to feel good. Pain wasn't supposed to heighten this kind of pleasure. He lifted one hand from where they were touching her and grabbed one of her tits. His t-shirt did nothing but accentuate how round and perky and big they were.
How this woman could think poorly of herself was beyond his level of thinking. To him, she was perfect.
She mewled when he pawed at her breast, leaning into his touch and breaking contact with his mouth, whimpering his name again. She sighed again and looked into his eyes. They were open. She didn't look away, as they continued to touch and move on each other, her self-consciousness nowhere to be found. Her breathing was hitched and she panted on his face, her warm breath covering him in waves.
"Orihime," he whispered. His voice was full of longing, desire, and hunger. Hearing her say his name didn't help things any. Had he been paying attention to his own body instead of everything else, he might have been able to stop what they were doing and cool down. He might have been able to hold back but he was so wrapped up in her, that Ulquiorra did not recognize he was approaching an orgasm. The tension in his muscles broke, cracking like a piece of fragile ice that someone stepped on. His body arched up against her and euphoria spread through his body.
"FUCK," he growled. He had come in his sweatpants. He had to stop her from moving her hips because his cock kept twitching and each pulse overstimulated him more. Ulquiorra carefully pushed her off of him and to the side. Sitting back up, he turned away from her.
Orihime didn't know what happened. Had she hurt him? Had he suddenly regretted everything? What suddenly changed? The heat in her body suddenly felt ice cold as her mind flooded with rejection.
"Ulquiorra… Did I do something wrong?" she asked in a tiny voice.
"No. I did," he responded. Fuck. This was fucking horrible. That had never happened to him before. He could exercise great control and here he was losing it around her of all people.
She was beginning to panic. He did something wrong, he said. He wished he hadn't done this with her. He probably thought she was the worst. A slut. A tease. Hadn't she always told him she wanted to be friends, and then she goes and pulls a stunt like this? What had she been thinking? Why did she accept his offer to sleep here? She was the worst! She sat up on the opposite side of the bed and grasped her knees painfully, shame flowing through her veins like a coarse, sandy sledge. "I'm sorry," she managed to squeak out before her lower lip starting wobbling too much to be able to speak.
He huffed a heavy sigh. Why should she be sorry? "I-I came. I'm the one who should be sorry. I should apologize to you," Ulquiorra stammered. Why the fuck did he feel so embarrassed? Was it because he had a reputation to keep in place? No. It was because this was Orihime.
Orihime was confused. She still felt terrible about being the cause of his current unhappy condition, but… Did he just say he came? Isn't that a good thing? She took a deep breath to calm herself. Maybe there was something about this situation that she didn't understand. "Isn't that the point? I mean, don't you want to?" She could slap herself for her inability to be articulate at the moment, but she figured she got the point across.
Ulquiorra stood up and walked around the bed and over to his dresser. He kept his back to her as he peeled off the sweatpants. He cleaned himself up with them before tossing them into the empty basket. He opened the top drawer and grabbed a pair of boxer-briefs. He put them on and then turned to face her. "I wanted to but-I kind of pride myself on making my partners achieve an orgasm before me."
She was barely listening. She had watched unblinkingly as he stripped from the waist down, getting a perfect eyeful of his ass and legs. They were impressive. He could easily be an underwear model. Then he when he turned around with the boxer-briefs on she was treated to the sight of his still swollen member clearly outlined through the dark gray fabric. Her mouth was too dry to speak. She sat there with wide eyes, staring, her mouth slightly agape. She could not look away.
He took her expression the wrong way. "I know. It's ridiculous. I'm sorry. I was too wrapped up in everything to pay attention to what was going on."
Her body was feeling weak but his apology kind of snapped her out of her ogling hypnosis. She wiped the corner of her mouth and blinked hard a few times, raising her eyebrows. She cleared her throat. "Um, ahem, well… Um, ridiculous isn't the word I'd chose," her breath rushed out of her in one quick huff as he turned slightly, treating her to a new perspective of his junk. She whimpered slightly and sucked in a rushed breath, mentally forcing herself to drag her eyes away from the package. It was too obvious. She was going to get caught.
"What?" Ulquiorra glanced at her and then followed her line of sight to where she was looking. She was looking at him. She was staring at him. "Woman, tell me you're free tonight."
"I'm free tonight," she answered robotically. "I'm going out to Aquamarine but you should come…" she sounded like she was not quite living in reality.
A really perverted thought crossed his mind. He had to bite his lip to keep from saying it. He moved to over where she was sitting and placed a knee on the bed on the outside of one of her thighs. "I already did, but I think I can again," he said, tilting her face up to look at him. Once again, he found himself in her lap, kissing her but it wasn't hot and heavy. He was just pecking her lips with his, trailing kisses down her chin and jawline.
She trailed her fingers up the outside of his arms, ghosting the tips against his warm shirt, up to his hair again. She gently combed her fingers through it as she made tiny little sounds in response to what he was doing with his lips. Then, she felt something foreign in his hair.
"Ulquiorra, you have something in your hair," she murmured, carefully grasping the mass and tugging only slightly so he would be able to locate it on his own, then brought her hands down to his chest.
He sighed and broke the contact that he had with her skin. "Where?" Ulquiorra asked bringing his long hair over his shoulder. He saw it. Emerald green paint was streaked through strands of black hair.
"There's a big chunk of it near the base of your neck," she informed him reluctantly.
"I should put it up when I paint. Damn it," he grumbled as he ran a hand where she said. Sure enough… he could feel the crusty surface of the paint that had dried there. The tube of green paint had practically exploded over his hands. He remembered wiping his hands off but must have missed some when he had brushed the mess out of his face. "I'm going to have to take another shower."
"Yeah, but I'm thinking you might have to get a haircut. I'm worried that's not coming out," she paused, considering him with a shorter style. She'd be able to see that tattoo on his neck more easily. "You would probably look pretty hot with shorter hair, just sayin'," she said with a shy smile.
He looked at her with a narrowed gaze, his eyelids covering half of his eyes. "Whatever. I'll get it out," he said. Ulquiorra kissed her again before he got off her lap. "I might show up tonight."
She smirked at him. "Are you kicking me out?"
"No, but don't you have to get ready for your outing? You could stay here with me."
"What time is it?" she asked lazily, stretching her arms out to either side.
Ulquiorra turned his head and looked at his alarm clock that sat on the bedside table. "It's almost seven."
"Oh crap, I gotta go," she said, bouncing up to her feet. She looked around for her clothes. "If you want to get in the shower right away I can let myself out. Um…." she paused and looked at him with a cute kind of squinty smile, "You still owe me some coffee, by the way. I expect some next time." She felt kind of presumptuous saying it, but she wanted him to know that she didn't expect this to be a one-time thing.
A smile came to his face, one where only half of his mouth actually moved. "I'm gonna give you some the next time I see you," he replied almost automatically. "I'm not rude, Woman. I will see you to the door."
She laughed nervously, "Um, I have to change first…" She picked up her things and started down the ladder, intending to go to the bathroom. "Although I would love to keep these, this isn't exactly the kind of 'walk of shame' ensemble a person like me can be seen in."
"Take them with you," he said watching her. Ulquiorra waited until she got to the bottom before he descended. He jumped a few feet from the floor, landing beside her. "Bathroom is through there." He pointed to the only other door in the room.
His boyish little display did not escape her notice, and she grinned at him as though he was the most precious little nugget she had ever seen. She didn't think before grabbing his hand, standing up on her tiptoes, and kissing his cheek. Then she turned and bounced over to the bathroom, saying, "I may keep the shirt but I don't need the briefs," then shut the door behind her.
