AN: well here it is, the finally chapter! i really hope you have enjoyed reading. please tell your fanfiction buddies about Late loving too XD xx
Chapter 8c
It was the fierce barking of the dog which heralded the noise of the helicopter. Kagome buttoned up her dress and smiled at the baby in her lap, rosy with repletion. "Well, sweet Aiko, that sounds as if your daddy's home. Shall I keep you awake long enough for him to kiss you hello?"
At six months babies cannot talk. But they could smile, and Aiko had the same ruthlessly seductive smile as her father. She beamed at her mother and her step-grandmother, who had come into the room, and gazed around her with golden eyes as if expecting her father to appear from the walls.
Kimiko took her jealously from Kagome's lap, cooing and smiling, her austere face oddly at peace. "Go and meet him" she urged. "Taisho and Michio are already there shouting and calling, little ruffians!"
Kagome laughed. "Little ruffian's is an understatement!"
But she was glad that Taisho had made the transference from New Zealand to Japan with so little trauma. He and Michio, the son of the gardener, were of an age and alike enough in temperament to become bosom friends, and after an initial awkwardness caused by the fact Taisho knew very little Japanese and Michio no English, they got on like a house on fire.
She walked through the wide rooms, shaded from the sun of spring, and down through the gardens to the helicopter pad. Already Taisho's voice was rising above the fading hum of the rotors; when Kagome stepped out from the cool shade of the trees, he was running ahead of his father, shouting excitedly. Laughing, Kagome moved aside to let the two boys race past, then waited until Inuyasha came up to her, tall and formal in the dark business suit he had worn from Tokyo.
"Kagome" he said, and in her name was all that she ever wanted to hear.
She went willingly into his embrace, uncaring that Chiko saw; Inuyasha had been away for three days and she was hungry for him, her slender body pliant against the hardness of his.
His mouth was fierce and demanding, but he cut the kiss short, lifting his head to laugh beneath his breath and say warningly. "It is too public for what I have in mind. How are you?"
"Fine."
"And the baby?"
Smiling, Kagome moved out of his embrace and walked up towards the house beside him, telling him of Aiko's latest trick, enjoying his shout of laughter. When Inuyasha came home the house woke from somnolence, became charged with his energy. She felt the electricity fizzing in her blood, and to take her mind off the open response of her body, went on to inform him of Taisho's latest exploits.
Later that night, in the big bedroom they shared, she came through from the bathroom wrapped in her robe and smiled at him as he laying reading in bed. "I had a letter from Miroku today" she told him.
Inuyasha put down his book and watched her as she sat down at the mirror and began to brush her hair.
"What did he have to day?"
She smiled. "Nothing much.
Reading between the lines, I gather that he's having trouble with the woman who's now his secretary."
"Indeed?"
She smoothed the fiery fall of hair back from her face and got up. "He said her work is good, but that he's having the devil's own job getting the men to do any work."
"Indeed" he returned drily. "He should be accustomed to that. His last secretary was exceptionally beautiful also."
His blatant appreciation still had the power to make her blush. Her colour deepened at his wicked chuckle, and she punished him by standing up and slowly peeling her wrap from her body, watching with pleasure as his eyes narrowed and the humour fled from his suddenly rigid features.
When he spoke again it was thickly. "Are you tormenting me deliberately?"
For answer Kagome tossed a laughing, teasing glance over her shoulder. He was out of the bed in an instant, the light falling in rose and copper over his magnificently aroused body and before she had time to do more than squeak her surprise the wrap and the gold nightgown it hid were on the floor and she was on her back in the bed, with Inuyasha poised threateningly over her. "Say you're sorry" he commanded.
Slowly, deliberately, she touched her tongue to her lip.
"Make me"
Every time it was better. Every time she felt this melting heat through her body, when he was gentle, when he laughed with her, and when, like tonight, he showed her his strength and the power he had over her. Her breath caught in her throat; she met the blazing need in his face with a desire as intense, and surrendered to the flames of their passion.
Afterwards, silky with sweat, she lay half beneath him and ran an indolent finger from his ribs to his spine, not even thinking, her brain enveloped in a rosy, sated haze. Inuyasha gave a small grunt of sheer contentment, and moved over on to his side, tucking her into his arms, his chin resting on the damp silk of her hair.
"I think" he said in old Japanese. "That I must be the luckiest man in the world."
In the same language speaking carefully, she returned. "And I the luckiest woman".
"Incidentally" she added reverting to English.
"Your son informed me proudly that he can now swear in Japanese. He was shocked to the core when I asked him how one swears in Japanese. Women don't. Apparently this damned macho instinct is inborn!"
He chucked lazily. "Perhaps. Your accent is improving, my sweet one."
"So it should be. No one here speaks anything but old Japanese to me!"
"It is the only way to learn."
Kagome laughed. "I know, so I just might forgive you for giving them the order."
He yawned, and stretched, but before Kagome had time to react with her usual helpless excitement to the lean litheness of his body, he asked curtly. "You are happy here? You do not miss New Zealand? I can move you to any place in this world, you know if you find life too quiet or cut off here."
She turned and kissed him softly, her mouth lingering over the high starkness of his cheekbones with loving delight. "No, I like it here. Kimiko had forgiven me for marrying you; it's amazing what difference a couple of grandchildren make! We get on well now, and Taisho is happy here. He gets a bit homesick, but he hasn't the time to indulge himself!" She moved sensuously against him and blew into his ear.
"Wanton" he reproved, spoiling the censure by touching his tongue delicately to the corner of her mouth.
"And do you trust me now?"
He kept his voice light, his tone teasing, but she knew him well enough to discern the real meaning behind the question.
Very seriously, with all her love, she said. "Yes, I do trust you. I should never have thought you were the same as your father and mine. Even when you were refusing to give up Kikyo, as I thought, you were unfailingly kind and gentle with me. I should have known then, because I doubt if my father was ever gentle with my mother, ever."
"And my father believed very definitely that most women were the better for a harsh hand" Inuyasha agreed, adding very softly. "But you were not to know, dearest, for I did not know then the emotions which confused me were love. I did not believe it existed except in romances. But now I know that where you are is home, and you are refreshment for my soul, and warm delight. Nothing, not casual sex with the most seductive woman in the world, or power or money, could ever give me the wild sweet madness I find in your arms. It took me long enough to learn that, but the lesson is well and truly committed to memory."
Kagome said in a shaken voice "In a way I'm glad we spent those years apart. I'm sorry you missed Taisho's early years, I can never give you those back, but we grew up, both of us, while we were apart, didn't we? We learned what we really wanted from life."
She could hear Inuyasha's smile as he answered. "And what was it that you wanted?"
Well, he deserved the surrender he wanted. He had matured over the years, but at heart he was still Inuyasha, arrogant and jealous and autocratic. "You" she said simply.
"And my children. But mostly you."
"You fill my eyes and my heart and my life" he said and it was all the knowledge that Kagome needed. As his hands moved tenderly, masterfully, over her skin she gave herself up to the sensual world he created anew for her each time they made love, and beneath the throbbing, pagan excitement, felt the rock-based peace that satisfied all her heart.