Chapter 22: Hazelbutts

After their emotional reunion the night before, they decided to go out and grab a bite at a sandwich place down the block and caught up, Ulquiorra telling her about his travels and Orihime filling him in on some things she learned about herself and what she did during her time away. She also mentioned that her aunt's birthday was coming up.

Ulquiorra sent her a text later that night offering to put a gift basket together, having remembered that they talked about doing that for Christmas last year before things between them deteriorated.

The next day, Orihime stayed at the office until six thirty, packed up, and headed over to the coffee shop.

Ulquiorra was waiting behind the counter, pouring four black coffees while Izuru rang up the customer. When he saw Orihime, he smirked at her and then pushed the coffees to the pick up counter. Then he came around to her. "Hey," he said.

She smiled at him before saying anything, looking at his face and then letting her eyes trail down his vest a bit. She caught herself before her gaze fell too far south, then cleared her throat and blushed as she made eye contact again. "Hey."

His face turned pink, too. "So, um, I picked out a couple things for your aunt. Wanna see?" Ulquiorra didn't wait for her to answer before he pulled her along to where the gift basket was.

She nodded as they went. "This is gonna be interesting," she said. She always thought he had a remarkable sense of what she liked, and wondered if this gift applied to everyone equally.

"I got her a tea sampler. It has one of each of the tea packets we carry. Uh, coffee lotion, vanilla lotion, a chocolate scented candle and this," he said, putting the tube of lip balm in her hand. On the front it said Hazelbutts.

"What the?" Orihime said, then laughed loudly at the name. "Who came up with this? It's hilarious."

"Izuru's girlfriend makes handmade stuff. It's basically Nutella lip balm," Ulquiorra replied.

"Well, this is all perfect. Kathy will love it. Thank you," she said, the mirth on her face gentling a bit as she looked up at him.

"I bought you a tube, too," he said shyly. "Um, also, I was going to include a three sample pack of coffee… We've got cinnamon vanilla, dark chocolate, and regular."

Orihime nodded. "She's going to think I'm spoiling her," she said. "How much do I owe you?"

He shook his head. "Nothing," he said.

"Oh come on," she said, swiping her hand at his chest with a featherlight touch. "What, do you want to put your name on the card, too?"

He shook his head again. "I'm leaving my business card in there. Honestly, it's the least I could do for you. If you want to pay me back, let me take you out again in a couple of days."

She made a bit of a duck face and looked at him from the side. "I don't think that's how paying someone back works, but I'm not going to say no."

Ulquiorra chuckled, grabbed the basket, and motioned for Orihime to follow him. "We're gonna go upstairs. I have cheddar broccoli soup in the slow cooker."

"Oh my god. Can I just, like, have you cater for me sometime?" Well then, Orihime. Let's cool our jets, shall we? She had just resolved to take her time to properly get to know him, not throw herself at him. She took a deep breath and followed up the stairs. "I like soup."

Ulquiorra looked at her and nodded. "Good, because I made a lot of it, so you're going to take some home and I need to put the rolls in the oven. Nothing fancy; they came from the freezer section of the grocery store. I figured we can eat that and watch Batman, if you want, or see if something is on Netflix."

"Okay," she agreed. She watched with interest as his legs and ass powered his body up the stairs. He looked so effortless and elegant. "Have you always dressed so formally? You always seem well put-together," she asked as if it were just a passing thought.

"Kind of," he answered. "My uncle said I should look my best when in public. You never know who is going to take a photo of you."

Orihime smiled. "Well, in your case, I can see the argument."

"I also went to schools where there were etiquette classes and stupid sports events for rich kids," he stated a moment later. "It was always, look your best to impress."

"We're like, opposites," she said. "Grimmjow was going to show me where you grew up, once, but as usual, he said one thing and did another," she remarked with a chuckle.

Ulquiorra stopped and looked at her. "He told you?"

"He mentioned a big house. I assume someone else lives there now," she said. It was nothing more than a curiosity to her.

"No, the house is still mine. It is empty. I stayed there for a couple of weeks before I went travelling," Ulquiorra sighed and resumed walking. He didn't say anything else until they reached his apartment. After unlocking the door, he went inside, waving Orihime in and taking off his shoes. "I'm going to get changed, you're more than welcome to tag along."

She blushed, taken by surprise at his offer. "Do you want me to pick out your outfit?"

"No; I usually wear comfortable stuff around the apartment. Nothing fancy. T-shirts, jeans. Sometimes, if it's cold outside, warm pants. I always wear socks." He talked as he moved down the hall and slipped into the bedroom. The vest came off. The shirt came off and he stood there in just the dress pants and socks he wore.

"Why socks?"she asked, standing in the doorway and pretending this was no big deal, trying to sound casual despite the circumstances. Her eyes flickered over his body every couple of seconds no matter how hard she tried not to. "Are you cold?"

Ulquiorra's head shook. "No, um, I think my feet are weird looking?"

Orihime narrowed her eyes and stepped forward. "Let me see your hands," she demanded, a pleasant look on her face as she held her hands out to him.

He held them out, his fists closed. Ulquiorra felt almost vulnerable as he did so. "What are you looking at?"

She picked up the weight of each fist in her smaller hands and held them a bit higher for inspection. "Open, please," she asked sweetly. "I want to see your anatomy."

Ulquiorra burst out laughing. She wanted to do what? "That doesn't require my hands open. It does require my clothes off though," he joked. Slowly, he opened his hands, though.

She gave him an unimpressed glare, which quickly evaporated as her eyes turned to his hands. She looked at them both for a moment, holding them up and turning them a bit, then put one down carefully and took the other in both hands. She took her time looking at the skeletal structure, the tendons, even the muscles in his forearms and the amount of webbing between the fingers. "You have lovely hands," she muttered as she continued to examine it. "I'm sure your feet are lovely as well," she assured him with a smile as her eyes rose back up to his.

He looked at her for a long moment before sliding his hands up her arms. "You are just lovely," Ulquiorra replied. He watched his fingertips trace the line of her neck and then her jaw. "Gorgeous."

Her face heated and she had to look away. "You're just saying that," she whispered.

"Do I look like someone who flatters another person for the hell of it?"

Orihime shrugged. "I don't think people have any kinds of physical markers to flag him or her as a flatterer," she explained, chancing an embarrassed look at his eyes.

He smirked. "I'm not one to bullshit people, Orihime. It makes me tired to needlessly compliment people who do nothing to deserve it."

"So…" she said in a low, trailing voice, suddenly very aware that he was only half clothed.

"Yeah?" he said, turning towards her and undoing the trousers. He let them hang open as he stared at her. Ulquiorra was never one for teasing, but he wanted to turn her on. "Something on your mind?"

She was incredibly uncomfortable, and squirmed a bit, one of her hands crossing her stomach as she swayed slightly to one side and back. It wasn't that she didn't like the view, it just felt like they were asking for trouble. She bit her lip and mumbled, "I don't know."

Ulquiorra nodded and turned his back to her, slipping his pants down and kicking them off. He was sure the black boxer briefs concealed him enough. He quickly grabbed a pair of track pants and a long sleeved shirt. He kept his back to her as he put them on. "Hungry?" he asked, turning around.

She wore all the markers of arousal. Flushed skin. Red lips. Glossy eyes with heavy lids. When she spoke, her voice was weak and breathy. "I'm starving," she said, taking a step back to allow him access to the exit, waiting to be led back to the kitchen.

"C'mon and I'll feed you. We'll have to wait for the rolls to cook, but that won't take long." He led her out the other open doorway to the kitchen island before he went to where the slow cooker was. He lifted the lid and stirred the contents. Garlic, cheddar and the smell of other spices filled the air. Ulquiorra was damn proud of himself. Hopefully it tasted as good as it smelled. He busied himself getting the rolls out and putting four of them on a pan before preheating the oven. It didn't take long. "Ten minutes."

She leaned over the kitchen island as she watched him and when he turned around, she had been drawn into a fantasy of domesticity with him, and wore a dreamy expression. "What?"

"We have ten minutes to wait for the bread to get done." He looked at her before he walked over to where she was. "You look like you're on cloud nine at the moment," he said, leaning against her. "Wanna share with me what you're thinking?"

"Um…" What felt like a permanent blush on her face deepened and she drew a figure eight on the smooth stone surface of the countertop. "I was just thinking that this is really nice," she said.

Ulquiorra nodded and then kissed her cheek. "Yeah, the countertops are nice."

"That's not what I meant," she murmured almost inaudibly.

All Ulquiorra had to do was lean far enough forward so that his lips brushed her ear. His voice was low and deep and slightly growly, "I know what you meant. Anytime you want to play house, I'm game."

Her breath left in a quickly, her skin tingling at his lips on her ear. "I'll put it on my to-do list," she said, shivering as she did.

He gave her a nod and then walked over to the fridge, "Do you want anything to drink? I've got milk, cranberry juice, water. Anything sound appealing?"

"Hm, water is good," she didn't think any of the other options would pair especially well with the soup.

He got her out a bottle of water and took it to the table. Then he dished out two bowls of soup. Ulquiorra got everything out that they would need before the timer beeped. He moved smoothly between the oven and the kitchen island putting a hot pad under the pan. "Go ahead and sit down. I'll bring it over."

"Okay, but I'm doing dishes," she said, going over to the table and taking the same seat she had taken on his birthday nearly a year ago.

"I have a dishwasher," he stated, throwing the bread onto a plate. As he approached, he looked at her. He cleared his throat as he sat down. "After this do you want to watch Batman or something else?"

"I'd love to watch Batman," she said, smiling at him. "I bought it for you because I love that movie, and honestly, I haven't watched it in a long time."

He smiled back and began eating.

He sat on the big couch with his arms behind his head, eyes glued to the screen. Keaton had some moves as Batman, and taking on the Joker was no small feat. "Did you know that this film had themes from The Killing Joke ?" he said to Orihime.

"What's that?" she asked, looking up at him from her spot in the corner of the couch, her knee-sock-covered legs folded off to the side beside her on the couch cushion and her bare knees sticking out toward Ulquiorra. "I've never heard of it.

Ulquiorra glanced at her and then at her legs. "Want a blanket?" he asked before continuing. "The Killing Joke is a one-shot graphic novel. It's the Joker's origin story and how Barbara Gordon came to be the Oracle. Supposedly Batman kills the Joker at the end of it."

"I didn't imagine you to be a graphic novel kind of guy. I had flirted with the idea of doing one of my own, but my storytelling doesn't really lend itself to the format," she said, then looked back at the television screen. "I wouldn't say no to a blanket, honestly."

"The Joker intrigues me. I also like Jason Todd. I like the entire Batman series." He held out his right hand and showed her his knuckles. There was a black bat tattooed on his middle finger, along with several other small tattoos. "You're an author and an illustrator. How does it not lend itself to the format?"

She leaned forward a bit to look more closely. "I noticed these before. They're really well done. Is the bat for Batman? Are you really Bruce Wayne?" she asked, her tone somewhere between genuinely curious and mildly flirtatious.

He shook his head before he paused the movie and then walked over to the closet that was on one side of the fireplace. He opened it and got a nice soft blanket for Orihime. "No, but I do have money. Not a billionaire, but I'm comfortable."

Orihime gave a small smile and nodded slightly. It wasn't any of her business how much money he had. It wasn't something she felt she had a right to talk to him about, either, at least not directly. "I had some friends who had comfortable parents when I was a kid. I had this one friend, Kirsten, who had horses, and I got to take riding lessons with her for awhile, until my mom ruined it," she said looking up in a wistful way. "I miss the smell."

"Hmmm," he hummed as he brought the blanket back over to the couch. He handed it to her and sat back down, getting comfortable again. He didn't look at her as he showed her what the left hand said.

Four letters spelled out one word.

She looked and smiled with half of her mouth as she read the word: LUST. "Oh, I noticed that one early on. It definitely added to the flights of fantasy when I was drawing you," she said, her smile extending further across her face.

Ulquiorra's mouth turned up at the corners. He still didn't look at her as he put his hand on her knee. "Did it? I knew you thought of me."

"How?"

"Just how you tried your hardest to fade into the background. It made you stand out more to me when you stared," Ulquiorra shrugged.

Orihime shook her head. "You didn't exactly enjoy my presence for a long time, though," she replied. "I must have seemed like such a creep."

"To be fair," he said, finally peering at her, "I don't really enjoy anyone's presence. I liked the attention from you, but everyone else… No. When other women found out I had money, it was like, "let's use Ulquiorra". I don't think you're like that. You're the second woman to know where I live. Rangiku is the only other one."

"Really? It seems like a convenient location for you to…" she trailed off, her stomach sinking a bit at the memory of basic bitches flirting with him. "You know. Pumpkin spice lattes," she said with a self-conscious chuckle.

His eyes flickered over to her and he frowned. Whenever she said that it made him think of the pumpkin spice incident. A heavy sigh left him. She was with Grimmjow when it happened. He wanted to take his frustration out on someone. "It seems that when you bring it up, that you don't like that I had sex with other people. I barely knew you when it happened, but I wanted you. But seeing your face that day… I didn't want to do it again."

"Sorry. I know I had no right to be, but I was really, irrationally, jealous," she admitted, smiling awkwardly. "I don't know what to do when I feel that way. It feels like acid inside."

"Kind of like what happened whenever I saw you all wrapped around Grimmjow? Yeah, I know how that feels."

"Sorry," she sighed. "I…" She shook her head. This was ancient history by now.

"I want to treat you better than Grimmjow treated you. That's why we're not in my bed. I want to get to know you. I want to show you what I am like and personally… I'm boring. I'm a workaholic," Ulquiorra said, still studying her. "We can do this dinner and movie thing until the end of time. I enjoy it. I enjoy having you in my house and in my life."

Her face was blank for about twenty seconds, just letting his words rattle around in her brain. Slowly she grinned, and then laughed, and then looked at him with a brilliant, unguarded smile. She stood up on her knees and walked on them over to Ulquiorra, plunking her ass down next to him and leaning into his shoulder.

He picked up his phone from where it sat beside him and he brought up the alarm feature. It showed ten alarms set for various reasons. He hadn't used them in a while, but they were still on his phone. "I'm not as neurotic as I used to be. In the last year, I've slacked off a bit."

She sighed and looked up at him, not moving her head off of his shoulder. "You say that like it's a bad thing," she said, then grabbed the remote control from his hand and pressed play.

"Get the blanket, we can snuggle."

Ulquiorra initiated the kissing when the movie was almost done. He placed a gentle kiss on the side of Orihime's neck. He was curious to see how she would react to it; to him. "Sorry," he murmured. "I couldn't resist."

She blushed, hard. "Um, sorry for what?" she asked, feeling a bit shy for some reason. She turned her face toward his and smiled. "I liked it."

"You did?" he asked, peering at her with wide eyes. Ulquiorra had apologized because he should have asked before doing that. "Can I do it again?"

She nodded, her eyes drifting down to her lap as her smile widened and her cheeks glowed. "Mmhmm," she answered.

Ulquiorra shifted closer to the redhead so that he could reach his hand out, running his fingers through her hair, before sweeping it out of the way. He then dipped his head down again. His mouth latched onto the spot he had kissed before, only for a few seconds before he kissed his way to Orihime's jaw. "I thought about you a lot while I was gone," he said as he pulled away from her.

"Oh yeah? What did you think about?" she asked, her voice dreamy and her eyes half-closed. What he had done had her insides squirming, but she took slow, steady breaths through her nose to try to calm down. She was semi successful.

"You. How you looked; who you were with… If you were doing okay," he said. "You wrote a book about me."

Her eyes rose and her smile gentled. "I did. I started writing it a long time ago," she said softly, her eyes darting to his for a moment to see his reaction.

He gave her a tiny, tiny smile. "Why? I'm nothing special."

"You're wrong," she said, shaking her head and snickering softly. She looked up at his face and melted a bit at his expression. "You fascinate me. You always have."

"But why? You've fascinated me for a long time. Ever since you set foot into my coffee shop."

"Have you ever seen yourself?" she asked, a finger coming up and trailing a line from his eyebrows to his chin, her eyes watching its path. "You are more than just eyebrows and teal ties, though."

That got a slightly bigger smile out of him. "I knew my eyebrows were a problem," Ulquiorra joked. "You probably know this, but you're not your mother. You're not chained to your past. You're my Orihime. You're funny and engaging. You're clever and sweet."

She nodded along when he said she wasn't chained to her past but pouted when he called her his Orihime. She took a deep breath for courage before leaning forward and getting up on her knees, just enough to swing one over and straddle his legs. She settled her butt on them and looked into his eyes at his level, then said, "I know I'm not Louise. It's a process, though. Sometimes I go backwards." She took another deep breath and released it before saying, "Your eyebrows are not a problem," then leaned forward and touched her forehead to his. She didn't know what to say. She wanted to just enjoy this for a moment.

His hands came up to settle on her hips. Ulquiorra felt they were toeing a line. He knew, one of these days, it was going to happen. It was just a matter of when it was going to happen. If Orihime asked him to fuck her, make love to her or some variation of the question, he knew he didn't have the willpower to say no. "What's wrong?"

She smiled and shook her head, feeling her eyebrows mess up his during the process. "Absolutely nothing. I… I…" she sat up and looked back at him, letting him see the besotten look on her face. "It seems like I can't get close enough." She then leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his lips, pulling away to hover over his lips as he had done to her, then murmured, "I could do this all day."

"Yeah? What about all night?" Ulquiorra slid his hands up her sides until they rested right under her breasts.

She pulled back and narrowed her eyes at him, one eyebrow arching dangerously high. "You an all night kind of guy?" she asked with her palms planted firmly on his shoulders, the tips of her fingers flexing into his flesh slightly. He was trying to shake her up, she thought. She could do it right back.

He bit his bottom lip for a moment before smirking. "I can be. I mean, I'm usually up at night. But I've never really wanted anyone around all night," Ulquiorra stated.

"How about now?" she asked, tilting her chin to the side and returning his smirk. "Not tonight, but some night?"

Ulquiorra gave her a nod. "Dinner tomorrow night too? I can bring it by your place this time."

She grinned at him. "It's a deal."

A/N: Happy weekend! Let us know what you think about their little awkward moments.