Heads up! Some sexiness in this chapter and *gasp* plot development!

Chapter 10

The breakfast table was unusually quiet. The twins finished eating quickly, sensing the tension and wanting to go back to their crayons before anyone started yelling again.

Sango and Miroku were under the impression that Inuyasha and Kagome were still angry with them and so followed their daughters as soon as was humanly possible, leaving the half-demon and priestess to their own devices.

"So-" Kagome started as Inuyasha said, "well-"

They both stopped talking and looked at each other, color marking both sets of cheeks.

"You go first." Kagome offered.

"No, no you go." Inuyasha returned hurriedly.

She laughed nervously, then caught the embarrassment in Inuyasha's expression and couldn't stop herself from bursting into real laughter.

"WHAT is so FUNNY?" He demanded.

"Your… face… this morning." She managed to choke out, clutching her sides. "You wouldn't… have been more… surprised if… Naraku had been… in the bed…" Her giggles renewed until she was just hiccupping and rubbing tears of mirth from her eyes.

The side of Inuyasha's mouth twitched in an almost smile. "Why DID you sit me this morning?"

Kagome gulped, but her giggle box was so thoroughly turned over that she just ended up cracking up again. "It… was an accident."

"How did you accidentally sit me?" He stood up and loomed over her.

"I said "That's it"-" Despite trying to make the words clearly separate, the "s" still carried and activated his beads, sending him down on top of her again.

Inuyasha, sensing danger, put one arm crooked over Kagome's head to stop himself from crushing her against the ground. There was a pop as his shoulder dislocated from the effort but he still managed to keep from hurting her.

"… Ow." He rolled off her as soon as the beads would allow.

"Nice catch…" She trailed off as she saw him holding his shoulder and wincing. "What happened?"

He shrugged with his good shoulder. "S'no big deal." He grasped his arm firmly.

"What are you doing…?"

"I'm half demon Kagome." He explained as though talking to a very slow child. "I'll heal it wrong if I don't get it back in place fast."

"Jeez! Just because a hole in your gut isn't a big deal to you doesn't mean that you should shrug off everything!" Kagome swatted his good arm away and kneeled in front of him to untie his haori, slipping that and his shirt off his arm, leaving half of his chest bare.

"Uh… Kagome?"

"Hush." She ran her fingers gently over the joint, ignoring the feel of his skin, which was so much warmer than her own, and grasped strategically along his arm. "Ready?"

He nodded and bit his lip.

With a sudden jerk she popped the shoulder back into place and only the smallest hiss of breath from Inuyasha told her that it had hurt.

"I'm sorry." She didn't meet his eyes while she rotated his arm gently. "Does it feel right?"

"It's fine." He took her hand and moved it off his arm. "Thanks."

"Don't… mention it." She trailed off as she looked into his warm golden eyes, the only eyes she ever wanted to look into intimately. She was distracted by the ruby drop of liquid on his lip where he had bit it. "You're bleeding!"

He actually laughed outright. "You've bandaged my sword wounds, claw marks, actual gaping holes in my body and broken bones and you're worried over a drop of blood?"

"Just because I've seen you hurt before doesn't mean I'll ever be used to it Inuyasha." She brushed the blood away carefully, trying not to look at the well-shaped mouth it had come from. Despite her effort she felt her heart pick up its pace and knew from experience that Inuyasha would be able to hear the difference. "You know… you're… you're too…. Important to be bleeding all over the place." She blurted the words out and abruptly left the room before he could react.

Miroku walked in moments later and found Inuyasha half-dressed with a clawed hand raised in the direction Kagome had gone.

"I hate it when they tease you like that. Women just don't realize how painful it is for men to start and then stop suddenly." He commented benignly as he gathered Kagome and Inuyasha's dishes.

"Start what?" Inuyasha asked, rolling his already healed shoulder and redressing.

"Ah… nothing! Nothing at all!" He smiled a little too widely and muttered on his way out "You two are too naïve for your own good." Forgetting that if Inuyasha could hear the change in Kagome's heartbeat, he could certainly hear undertoned words.

It's not like I'm some idiot! Inuyasha thought frustratedly. Women had never fazed him before Kikyou, who drew his human blood and made his heart race, and then Kagome, who made him feel whole for the first time in his existence. That was what first made him care for her, her acceptance. Later it had been her compassion for everyone that made him love her, and then her passion and spunk that made his pulse jump every time he could smell or touch her.

That morning had been risky, and he smiled ruefully as he remembered it.

He had woken early to find that she had scooted across the bedding, naturally drawn to his body heat, as demons ran hotter than humans and so as a half demon his temperature was always a little high. He embraced her when he felt her shiver, drawing her into his warmth and lightly dosed off and on through the early hours. When she started moving against his body he wasn't sure how to react, then she had jolted him and fully stripped sleep away from him.

"Ten more minutes!" He mumbled and flipped over to his back, pulling her with him and keeping her pinned as payback for shocking him with sacred energy. He didn't mean to have his hand so intimately placed on her body but as that was where it naturally landed he couldn't risk pulling it away for fear of her realizing he was completely awake.

While he was deliberating what to do, she accidentally "sit"ted him, pulling his body on top of hers. That time he didn't have time to cushion her but the mattress saved her from any real harm.

He yelled, taken completely by surprise and his reflexive response had been to say "Would you stop doing that!" But he didn't get through the whole thing as every millimeter of his body had been electrified with the awareness of hers.

"M-Morning." She said in a breathless voice that hadn't helped his predicament in the slightest.

He'd retreated quickly and thanked the Buddha, the heavens, and whatever else he could think of, that clothes in his era were baggy.

He pushed open the door and stormed outside to do something physical to work off his pent-up energy. The air burned his sensitive nose by being a few degrees colder and he settled for chopping wood. Unfortunately he'd have to chop down the whole forest to work off half the tension that had built up since Kagome's return.

At least he wasn't bored anymore.

Kagome dragged the wood and straw dummy for the dojo students into a small clearing out of sight of the house. She needed to blow off some steam, being around Inuyasha again was like having a constant adrenaline rush, until she adjusted to it she was going to be a little high-strung.

Her graduation present to herself had been a neat little gadget that she saw in a magazine on an airplane. It was a compact solar charger for electronic devices. She had bought it, using all of her savings, in an impulse, hoping that she would need it if she ever went back in time again. The only thing that she honestly thought she could not live without in the feudal era was her music.

She put her ear buds in, picked an album with heavy bass beats and started stretching. After a few salutations to the sun she was ready to start with the real work out and tapped the dummy experimentally with her foot. It was sturdier than most modern exercise equipment and she went through her usual cycle of kicks and punches before getting into the more specialized movements of elbowing, kneeing, and hammerfisting.

Though she rarely used offensive techniques, she kept herself practiced in them. Especially with the jewel inside her it was better to be safe than sorry. She was so engrossed that she barely registered Inuyasha's presence.

Inuyasha had been cutting wood when he heard Kagome yell and rushed to see what was wrong. It took him a moment to calm his protect instinct when he saw she was alright. He considered using the Tetsusaiga on the dummy but figured Kagome would be upset about his interference.

She had music playing from one of the little gizmos that she had shown him years before from her world, except they were much smaller now. He decided to stay near since she wouldn't hear if anyone attacked.

Jumping into his customary perch in a nearby tree, he put his arms behind his head and watched her through half-closed eyes. She was not beautiful in the way that his mother had been, the kind of beauty that made people weep, but she had something that set her apart. Some kind of inner brilliance, something in addition to her spiritual powers that made her so beautiful to him. A combination of confidence, love, acceptance, so many things that humans took for granted that he had seen only glimpses of growing up. Kagome was the first person he had ever met who honestly passed no judgment on anyone, no matter how they looked, and could truly redeem lost souls.

To him she symbolized hope. Hope for life, a good life, with a family.

As she worked over the dummy, he could almost hear the music she was listening to, something sweet like a flute. His attraction to her grew, slowly at first, then exponentially. Before he knew it he had jumped down and was capturing her wrist as she pulled it back to strike the dummy again. Every fiber of his being was screaming at him to take her, to claim her, here in the forest.

That thought alone stopped him cold. He didn't want to claim Kagome, he wanted her to choose to be with him. Something was wrong.

"Inuyasha?" She took the small music makers out of her ears to talk to him. The instant they were out her eyes glazed over and she stared up at him with an expression of slavish lust. "Take me…"

Inuyasha dug through the years of training in how to quell the urges of his demonic blood to try to find the will power to resist taking advantage of the woman he loved. It was very difficult. He was struck suddenly by the realization that Kagome hadn't been trying to take his pants off (as she was working on now) when she had her music makers on and clapped his hands over his ears, cutting out the sweet notes of the flute.

His lust abated to normal levels—which were still nearly unbearable, but not mind-controlling. Unfortunately this meant that he was no longer holding her wrist so she had both hands to work at removing his clothes. He tried using his one arm to cover his ears and one to hold up his clothing as Kagome soundlessly pulled at it but she had surprisingly agile fingers and already had his haori off and was sliding her hands over his chest under his shirt.

"Kagome stop!" He gasped at the feel of her touching his skin.

"Inuyasha…" she looked up at him and he could read his name on her lips. Seeing her say his name with love and lust in her expression was almost enough to make him give up trying to stop her and let her have her way with him.

It still felt too much like rape to him though, and when and if he and Kagome finally took that step he wanted her to have control of her actions.

He had a brilliant idea and used one hand to put her music maker back into her ear, keeping his own ears covered. While he was trying to find the other one Kagome put her mouth against his chest.

The touch of her lips against his bare skin made him go cross-eyed and he took several deep, calming breaths that came out suspiciously more like shallow gasps. He tried a different tactic and started trying to drown out the leftover vestiges of the music by tunelessly yelling, "LA LA LA LA LA LA LAAAA!"

Kagome looked up at him with a wicked glint in her eye and he cringed. If this was mind-control then this was the point where whoever was on the other end would make Kagome try to kill him.

Instead, in addition to feathering kisses across his collar, she started slipping a hand into his loosened pants.

"Nonononono!" He knew if she started touching him there it was game over for him and in a frenzied panic found her other music maker and popped it back in her ear.

She shook her head and her eyes cleared, but the proof that she was back to normal was the deep scarlet color that was creeping into her cheeks. Her saw her mouth begin to form a word that looked very similar to "sit" but she paused before finishing and took in his appearance.

He tried to picture how he must look, one arm flattening his ears, the other holding together his clothing, no doubt breathing hard. Experimentally she pulled her music maker out of one ear part way and fell against him, this time with her eyes staying clear but her body acting almost entirely of its own accord. She found the will to cover her ear again with a shaking hand and with her eyes downcast, retied his belt for him.

"Thanks." He smiled and made the mistake of removing his arm from his head, forgetting momentarily why it was there. Immediately a wave of lust crashed into him so powerfully that he fell to his knees and grabbed her waist, pushing her shirt up with his thumbs and tasting the salty flesh of her stomach with a swift flick of his tongue.

Her own knees started shaking and he supported her weight while pushing his face against her skin, breathing deeply as he had the first night she had been back. He felt a pressure over his ears and he moaned at the feel of her touching them.

The moan cut short as once again the sound of a flute was blocked out. He carefully put her shirt back into place and slipped his hands from around her waist. His hearing was still good enough that the faintest murmur of the music could still be heard and he leaned his head against her stomach; looking at the ground and wrestling with the intensely warm, tight feeling of his skin and how scratchy and uncomfortable his clothes felt against it. He tried desperately not to think about how much better it would feel to have Kagome's satiny skin pressed naked against his own and put his hands over hers in an attempt to completely block out the music that seemed to echo in his head.

He let out a scream of frustration and anger that he couldn't hear. He was immensely frustrated by his own self-control and that he hadn't just gone the easy route and taken Kagome, and he was angry that someone would try to make him do something like that to her when she deserved so much better.

He looked up at her with his eyes so brightly gold they looked molten and mouthed one word.

"Run."

She nodded and carefully moved her hands out from under his, taking off in the direction of the house as soon as she was freed. Inuyasha lunged forward at the same instant, running as fast as he could away from the house. When all he could smell of Kagome was her lingering scent on his clothes, he moved his hands from his ears once again.

His own stubborn resolve pushed him in the direction the music was coming from but the louder it got the stronger his urge to turn around and run back to Kagome grew. Finally he could go no further and started tearing at the trunks of trees with his claws out of sheer frustration. With the music this loud any attempts to block it out were fruitless.

"Inuyasha." A voice cut over the music.

He turned slowly but his nose already told him who he would find standing there. Clay and tears.

Kikyou stood in all her righteous glory, apparently unscathed by her earlier flight. While all similarities in scents had faded long before, she still looked far too much like Kagome for his comfort.

"Get away from me!" He growled, blood dripping from his fingers where the bark had cruelly bit into them.

"What. Are you doing?" She asked disinterestedly.

"Can't you hear it?" He turned his growl skywards and let it grow in volume. "That fucking music is going to make me crazy!"

"… er." Kikyou completed in an undertone and walked a step closer.

"I mean it! Stay away from me Kikyou!" He was having a hard enough time telling his body that it wasn't Kagome standing before him, that it was a doll who looked like Kikyou, who looked like Kagome. Luckily for him, saying her name blasted her skywards and away. That time he didn't feel even the slightest bit conflicted about Kagome having collared her, he was intensely grateful to rid himself of all temptation of her. "KIKYOUKIKYOUKIKYOU!" He yelled for good measure, making sure no one who remotely reminded him of the woman he was lusting after was nearby.

He snarled ferociously to the heavens and felt the creeping fire in his veins that signaled his demon blood trying to gain control, the familiar burn helped curb his arousal but he knew that the tradeoff would not be worth it in the long run. Reflexively he thought of what usually calmed him when the demon inside him tried to take over, Kagome. But this just sent him into a further frenzied state so he grabbed the tetsusaiga and bit into the sheath, sinking his fangs deeply enough to touch the blade. That calmed him enough that he just had to wrestle with the lust.

He ran the scene earlier over and over in his head, thinking of her moving her hands from under his, and how small and delicate they had felt. He thought of the taste of her skin still lingering on his tongue and the feel of her waist in his hands, so much smaller than he thought it would be. Her power and personality always made her seem almost as big as he was, but in truth she stood a head shorter. His chest tingled where her mouth had been and he shut his eyes tightly, trying to block the sensations.

As abruptly as it had started, the music stopped, leaving Inuyasha gasping in what felt like the first full breaths of air in years. When he had his body under firm (or rather not firm) control again he yanked his teeth out of his sheath and took off again towards the direction the music had come from.

He ended up in a clearing that smelled different from the surrounding forest; he could clearly detect the metallic tang of demon, but also an oversweet scent. That must be the (Kagome) demon's breath if it (Kagome) was playing (Kagome) a flute it would be doing (Kagome) a lot of exhaling. He reasoned. His mind was not completely free of the after effects of the spell and Kagome was making an appearance a little more than usual in his thoughts. He sternly told his body to focus on the task at hand, which was not remotely sexual in any way, but certain parts of his anatomy were firmly rebelling.

Shaking his head in an attempt to clear it he took several deep lungfuls of the air in the clearing through his nose, memorizing the scent.

He waited a few more moments, determining if he was calm enough to return to the house and turned back in that direction.

Author's note:

Thanks to all my followers! The support has been super awesome, makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. I will answer any questions that you have, except of course about the plot because I want you to be surprised. About the title, Wolf, I honestly totally blanked when I was trying to think of something. Now it would be like… The Return of the Priestess and the Jewel, or The Most Amazing Story Ever (But that was taken by Rumiko Takahashi). Hopefully my next story will have a title and summary that make the angels sing! Will update soon friends.

-Azure.