"I'm here," She murmurs quietly, "I'm ready."

"Are you?" He asks, though he doesn't turn to face her. A long-suffering sigh breaking across his back as surprisingly, she reaches out to kneed at the knots in his shoulders in frustration.

"I'm about to be deflowered for the sake of the quest, Monkey," She mutters, hitting a particularly tender spot somewhat viciously, "What do you think?"

"Well, ouch, I can tell you for a fact, hey easy, it's been over five hundred years for me," He replies, scowling over his shoulder at her manhandling, "So technically we're both in the same boat there. Do you really have to say it like that though? Deflowering. It's just sounds so- I don't know-"

"Vulgar? Intrusive? Painful?" She retorts and her fingers still against his skin.

"Like you expect I'll break you," He corrects quietly, a frown turned over his shoulder, "I'd never hurt you, Tripitaka."

"Not intentionally, no," She replies with a weary sigh and a small smile, "But it can't be helped now can it. Or so I've been told."

He huffs, "My lowly opinion of mortal males would appear well justified."

"Maybe," She concedes with a thoughtful hum and resumes her ministrations only much more gently than before, "You should know though, the first and only man I've ever kissed was a god so..."

"What?" He startles at that, somewhat incensed, jealous even and she smirks, "Who?!"

"Who do you think?" She snorts incredulously at his seemingly appalling memory.

"It's not Pigsy, is it?!" She laughs outright when he shudders in disgust as the words leave his mouth.

"Don't be mean," She chides, "Pigsy's not so bad."

"I suppose," He concedes with a huff, his gaze still somewhat suspicious, "But it isn't, Pigsy, is it?"

"No, it wasn't Pigsy," She agrees with a roll of her eyes, leaning into him enough she can see his face, "Geeze, I can't believe you don't remember the day we first met."

"The first day we-" His eyes widen suddenly in realisation and she grins, "…it was me."

She hums in affirmation and wonders just what's gotten into him now that his reply comes far more subdued than she might've expected until she realises just how intimately she's pressed against the length of his back. Her eyes widening at the feel of her soft curves moulded to his spine and the hard lines of muscle that tighten beneath his smooth skins and suddenly she isn't sure what to do in this moment and begins to panic despite her body's reaction to the contrary.

"Shit, Monkey I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"No don't…" She shudders when he stills her with a touch. Her breath hitching as he draws her hands braced awkwardly against his shoulders to curl around his neck in a familiar embrace that oddly enough, puts her at ease and she relaxes against him. Her legs of their own accord coming to press hesitantly again his hips. The skin beneath where his hand gently come to rest against her knee prickling, not unpleasantly, with goose pimples.

"This alright?" He murmurs when she shudders in anticipation.

"Yea." She nods her approval and smiles as his thumb idly begins rubbing at the back of her wrist as it rests across his collarbone. Her head lain atop an arm so she can still see his face, even if only in profile.

"So," He clears his throat and inquires conversationally, "I was your first then?"

"Hmmm, back when I was a boy." She teases gently.

"I had wondered in that moment if maybe you weren't what I'd expected," He began with a nod and a small curl of his lips, "Not that it mattered to me mind."

Her brow furrows at that, "The kiss?"

"Whether you were a guy or a girl." He clarifies with a small chuckle.

"Oh?"

He shrugs unrepentantly at her surprise, "I like what I like."

"Hmmm, if only the rest of the world shared such an open mindset," She muses thoughtfully, "It would certainly be a much better place if they did."

"Yea, but if the world didn't suck, you and I might never have met."

Immediately her arms tighten around him in response. Her eyes dipping to the rise and fall of his chest beneath her palm.

"I've already lived twice now in a world without you in it," She tells him, "Never again."

His lip curls into half a smile when she lifts a glance to meet his gaze.

"Then it's a good thing you promised never to leave again then, isn't it?"

"Yea," She smiles at that, "Guess it is."

"So, did you enjoy it?" He asks then, suddenly curious.

"Enjoy what?" Tripitaka's brow furrows in confusion.

"The kiss, Tripitaka," His resulting sigh is once again long-suffering.

"Oh, I- well," Her brow furrows as she thinks back, "Hmmm look to be honest I don't really think it counts at all. I mean it was barely just a press of lips. And to be fair we were just about to be slaughtered by the Font Demon so-"

"Hey, I had things well in hand," He objects with a scowl, "You're still here aren't you."

"I am," She agrees quietly and smiles, "Thanks to you."

His scowl slips away as he turns to face her, a sudden weight to his gaze that makes her stomach flutter. "We could try again?"

"We could." She agrees, watching him intently as ever so slowly he closes the distance between them. His lips gently coaxing a response that sees her moan quite enthusiastically and her fingers tangled into the roots of his hair. Her nails scraping his scalp as he tilts his head just so and she becomes intimately familiar with teeth and tongue.

"I can't breathe." She gasps when a pressing need to breathe brings an end to their considerable momentum.

"Me neither." He grins, his breath coming in short pants that match her own.

"That was-" She begins but the words won't come out. Her cheeks flushing hot as she gazes back at his equally affected expression.

"Much better, I think," He offers with a nod of encouragement, "Though I could be wrong."

"Best of three then." She agrees without missing a beat. His lips once again soft and pliable and so unlike the rest of him she can't help but marvel at the juxtaposition. A sigh leaving her lips as another moan sees him gently steer her from his back and against his chest. A growl of encouragement rumbling through him as she begins to squirm in his arms and he tears his lips away with a hiss.

"You know this is going much further, a lot faster than I'd anticipated." He shifts his attention to her jaw, his teeth finding the sensitive skin beneath her ear and once again she grinds herself against him seeking friction.

"Don't stop." She objects when he groans and stills her hips. His fingers likely to leave marks but she hardly cares.

"It's been five hundred years, Trip. Like I said," He snaps somewhat incredulously into her shoulder before he gently bites down, "I'd really rather not disappoint you if I can help it."

She stills at that and draws back to look at him. Her small hands cupping his cheeks.

"You could never disappoint me, Monkey," She admits quietly, "Surely you know that much by now?"

"Hmmm, so you say," He murmurs, eyes falling closed as their foreheads gently rest together, "But this? This is different."

"I know it is," She agrees, "But I love you, Monkey."

She sighs as his breath hitches at her admission, "Nothing you could do will ever change that."

"I-"

"You don't have to say anything back," She assures him softly, "And I know you probably don't want to hear this right now, but I do. Love you, that is. And not just as a friend."

"I'd have to blind and stupid to not have already worked that out, Trip," He whispers, pressing a lingering kiss to her lips before gifting the same treatment to her jaw, her throat, "Ever since the day I destroyed the shadow scroll and I felt it like you were right there with me."

"I'm sorry," She realises belatedly that her eyes are watering. Her head falling back as his grip at her hips relents and smooths up her sides. His teeth nipping at her collarbone and she gasps as his thumbs graze the tender flesh beneath her breasts.

"For what?" He rewards her with a kiss to her sternum, "Telling me the truth?"

"For not telling you long before you were forced into something like this," Her breath hitches as his lips trail the waterline across her chest, "For expecting this to make you feel any differently about me."

"That's the problem with you, Trip," He breathes and lifts her just so against him, his whispered words just shy of a nipple, "You make me feel so many things all at once I can hardly breathe sometimes."

She cries out as his teeth, lips and tongue connect with overly sensitive skin. His grin curling in satisfaction against her soft flesh. His calloused palms wandering their way down her back to cup her backside, the subtle movement once again creating friction where they move against each other and suddenly she realises, with a heady rush of lust, that she can feel him against her core. Swollen, hot and heavy through the thin material that still separates them.

It's then, Tripitaka thinks that perhaps had it been anyone else save the Monkey King himself cradled between her thighs, that fear might have indeed gripped her heart in such a moment, but instead she feels beautiful, powerful. Loved and admired above all else beneath his tender ministrations and the weight of his beloved gaze, and for the first time in her life, she feels like the woman she truly is.

That he knows she's become too caught up in her own thoughts speaks volumes of just how well they've come to know each other. Her attention effectively diverted back to the here and now as he bites down on the other nipple. His wondering hands trailing a particularly sensitive stretch of skin just above her hip that makes her tremble ever so slightly in his arms.

"What do you want, Tripitaka," He rumbles, removing himself from her aching nipples to draw her back to his lips for another kiss, "Tell me what you need."

"I don't know, I-" She mewls and gasps as his palm smooths down her abdomen between them. The warmth of his touch stilling just shy of the fine hairs that cover her sex. Her eyes snapping open much like her mouth that goes dry the moment his thumb ventures lower to stroke the swollen, aching folds he finds there.

"Tell me, Trip." He whispers against her lips as she cries out his name. "Tell me you want me."

"I want you," She only more than wholeheartedly agrees, as his fingers venture deeper still, "You know I do, Monkey, I-"

He silences her gasp with a kiss as his thumb strokes at the delicate bundle of nerves only more than happy to respond ever so eagerly to his touch. Her back colliding suddenly with smooth stone, frigid despite the warmth of the pool she notes with a hiss before he abruptly turns to settle his own back against the ledge and without preamble, draws her more fully into his lap.

A rush of breath leaving her lips when she finds herself astride him, her knees in the soft moss at his hips, her meagre weight rest against his thighs and her wet heat pressed intimately to the hard length of him straining against his belly.

She spares an idle thought for just when he'd managed to lose his pants, though she hardly finds it in her to care as the fire he's steadily been stirring in her belly begins to blossom into something she's not sure she might survive considering the way her heart begins to race and her breath quicken. Her nails digging into the flesh of his shoulders, her eyes wide with panic and her mouth open in a silent O as she looks to him for guidance.

"Monkey, I-"

"Just relax, let it come," He soothes, his tender strokes driving her towards something just out of reach. Just what that is though she isn't quite sure yet but trusts him implicitly and surrenders to the sensations his clever fingers inspire of her body that's fast approaching a precipice.

"Oh god-"

"Almost there, Trip-"

"Almost where? Oh…oh…"

She's in awe of the sudden and almost painful torrent of heat that bursts forth from beneath his fingers. Her body spasming and curling into the man who holds her cradled in his lap as she cries his name quite emphatically to any higher deity listening. His face, so very close to her own now, contorting in a mixture of both pleasure and pain she doesn't quite understand until finally her body calms and the desperate cling she'd taken upon him relaxes and she moves to pull away. The hand that had been soothingly stroking down her back holding her in place against him and suddenly she realises the solid warmth of him now sheathed between her legs, her body clenching around him in response and he gasps as he slides deeper still.

"Oh god." She moans at the feel of him. The Monkey King nodding quite emphatically in response.

"I know, just give me a second." He begs quietly, his teeth clenching tight as his eyes slide closed. Her arms gently encircling his shoulders as she settles against him with a quiet nod. The kiss she gifts his lips too just as soft.

"Did I hurt you?" He finally asks when his breath comes in less ragged pants.

"No," She whispers, "I feel incredible, you feel-"

He grins in smug satisfaction when he lifts her hips forward and she cries out once again. Her fingernails biting into his shoulders as ever so slowly he lowers her back upon his length and the overly sensitive nub he'd played like a fine instrument not moments before slides deliciously against his pubic bone in the process. Her eyes darkening with lust as she clenches around him once again and his expression goes completely lax, save his mouth that forms a perfect circle and the sigh of pure bliss he utters when she repeats the gesture of her own accord.

"Show me."

"Show you what?" He whimpers

"What you want, what you like," She whispers and shrugs, "What I need to do to make you feel as good as you make me feel right now."

"Just you, Trip." He replies on a breath, "Always."