Sasuke landed on the platform outside of her window carefully, silently cursing himself as his ankle twinged under his weight. The bottom of his shinobi pants were ripped and covered in mud, and his Anbu arm guards bore the brunt of sword marks. He slowly lifted the bottom of the window seal to open just enough for him to slip in. He flared his chakra slightly to let her know he was here; the last thing he needed was to have to dodge a chakra-infused punch to the face, and on his sprained ankle, he wasn't 100 percent sure he could dodge it completely.
He stepped into her bedroom and his eyes landed on her small frame curled tightly into her covers. It wasn't that cold, but he knew that she preferred as much warmth as possible when trying to sleep. Sasuke quietly undid the locks on his vest and let his Anbu gear slip soundlessly to the floor. He knew she had awakened the moment he landed on her balcony, but there was no reason to make more noise than necessary. Once he had completely undressed, he slipped into the bed behind her and wrapped one hand around her breasts and the other under her body to her hip. He easily pulled her into him and molded his heated body to hers. He leaned over, pressing his chapped lips to the skin where her neck and shoulder met, nipping the corded muscle lightly.
"Mmmm, Sasuke," she moaned as she pressed back into his warmth. Sakura shifted her thighs apart to allow him to slip his hot cock between them. Sasuke almost moaned, releasing a sharp grunt instead, as he felt the warmed, smooth skin cover his shaft. He moved his hips slowly back and forth, allowing the head of his cock to rub against her dampening core. Sakura followed his motion, arching her back to press her ass firmly into him, and then rolling her hips away. Sasuke's fingers easily found her nipple, puckered from the cold, and pinched it lightly between his fingers while he continued sucking her neck.
"Did you just get back?" Sakura questioned breathlessly. Sasuke ignored her, choosing instead to focus on shifting his attention to her other breast. He gripped her breast and moved his head down to twirl his tongue over her hardened nipple before latching onto it and suckling roughly. Sakura gasped but refused to be distracted by his sinful mouth.
"Sasuke, did you report to the Hokage's office, or go to the hospital for that matter to get cleared?"
"Hn." He pressed his teeth firmly around her nipple, not enough to hurt, but enough to arouse her further. He slid his hand down her stomach and past the triangle of springy, cotton candy pink hair covering her cunt. He pressed his fingers firmly into her clit and circled them just how she liked. Sakura brought her hand into the silky hair at the base of his neck and pulled gently to move his lips back to her neck. Sasuke smirked and pressed his lips back to her skin.
"Alright, you were just so eager to get back to me, I'll excuse it tonight, but don't think I didn't notice you favoring your left ankle. I'm checking it out before you leave," Sakura scolded. How many times had she told him to go to the hospital rather than avoiding it and expecting her to be his personal doctor at all hours of the night? She'd like to say a thousand, but it didn't help that every time he slipped into her room after dark, he came prepared with a heady erection.
"Hn. Annoying," Sasuke smirked as she huffed in annoyance. They did this every time, but her complaints always subsided for the night when he was inside her and he always let her rant as she healed him in the morning. He gripped his throbbing cock and placed it at her entrance, then secured his grip on her hips and pushed into her waiting cavern. They both moaned as he sank deeper into her, bottoming out until his heavy balls rested against her clit. He had to catch his breath as her cunt, warm and dripping, fluttered around him. Sakura squeezed her inner muscles playfully, trying to tip him over the edge.
"Sakura, stop," he groaned and glared at her. After so long on a mission, his stamina wasn't at its best.
"I have no clue what you're talking about," she smiled and squeezed him again. He growled and pressed his hand into her stomach to force his cockhead to rub against her upper walls. Sakura moaned feeling him on her most sensitive spot. Sasuke smirked, then pulled back until only the tip remained then thrusted back into her. Sakura screamed in pleasure as he thrusted repeatedly into her, hitting all the right spots with his thick cock.
"Sas—suke!" She arched her back into him, urging him to thrust as deeply as he could. Sasuke bit down into her shoulder as he gripped her hips with bruising strength. The sound of their wet skin slapping together increased their arousal, spurring their animalistic and instinctual activity.
This had been their ritual for years, a way for him to calm his adrenaline after missions. After his first solo mission as a jonin, he'd been itching for a way to calm down. Team 7 had met at Ichiraku for their monthly team meal and Naruto's incessant chatter had only been causing the tension in his body to wind tighter. Sakura had noticed and had insisted on walking him back to the Uchiha district, to his annoyance; he was in no mood to continue pleasantries. Once they had stepped through the gates, she'd pulled him into an alley and went down on him, swallowing every drop of cum and tension that seeped out of him thanks to her talented mouth and hands. That wasn't their first time in a sexual situation either, but it had been the first time he'd needed a way to come down off of the tension and high of a mission. He'd thanked her and sent a shadow clone with her to walk her home while he collapsed on his bed, replaying the image of her bubble gum colored head bobbing up and down his long shaft.
From that moment on, when he returned home from a mission, he looked for her to take the edge off; his back was decorated with the thin marks of her nails over the toned muscle. They'd fucked at the training grounds, in his old bedroom at his parents' house before he'd moved out, at her parents' house before she'd moved out, anywhere he could get his hands on her without all of Konoha knowing; not like they were hiding it, it just wasn't anyone else's business what they did. Their routine worked for them; when he needed her, she was there, and when she needed him, he was there.
Sasuke almost let his mind slip to what had been bothering him lately, but he refused to let those thoughts invade this space. He needed time away from all of it, and he intended to get that here with Sakura. Shaking his head, Sasuke shifted on top of Sakura, ignoring the pain from his ankle and supporting his weight to grab a pillow and slip it under her stomach. He then locked his fingers with hers on either side of her head and pounded into her.
"Oh yes, Sasuke, yes!" Sakura loved how intense Sasuke was. Just like hunting a target on a mission, he was single-minded in his pursuit of their pleasure, focusing only on the way their bodies moved and grinded against each other. Sakura could feel the sweat dripping from his forehead and hair onto her back, causing tingles and thrills up her spine as each drop slid down her heated skin. Sakura could feel her toes curling and the wave building at the bottom of her stomach with each of his sure thrusts. Every thrust was bringing her closer and closer to that ultimate pleasure; with Sasuke being gone and all of the work at the hospital, it'd been a month since she'd had a good toe-curling, earth-shattering orgasm, and she was long overdue. Sakura squeezed her thighs together to make her cunt even tighter and Sasuke responded with a deep grunt. He released one of her hands and clasped his hand around the back of her neck, holding her in place as he increased the speed and ferocity of his thrusts. He was blindly chasing that sweet release that would leaving his muscles gelatinous and his chest heaving, and Sakura knew exactly what would send him over.
"Please, Sasuke-kun. Cum inside me!" Sakura moaned desperately. Like clockwork, Sasuke shot his load of hot, milky cum inside her, triggering her own orgasm. Her muscles spasmed around him, encouraging him to fill her. Jet after jet of his seed shot into her cervix, giving her body what it had been craving for weeks. Sasuke gripped her hip as vibrations filled his body from his legs to the base of his spine, sucking his strength. He collapsed on his back on the side of her, pushing his sweat-slicked hair out of his face and allowing the cool air of her bedroom to dry his skin in a pleasant way that kept his sensitive nerve endings tingling. Sakura pushed her own hair out of her face and turned to lean on his chest.
"That gets you every time," She smiled, brushing her unruly strands behind her ear and over her shoulder. Sasuke slipped his hand under her hip to rest his fingers on the small of her back. He let his fingers draw lazy patterns in the last drops of sweat drying.
"Hn," he kept his eyes closed, refusing to give her the satisfaction of knowing she was right. He wasn't sure what it was about her calling him 'Sasuke-kun.' He'd hated it when they were younger, more interested in being better than his older brother than on girls who couldn't care less about being a ninja. That honorific had followed him from every girl in the academy, and he'd just wanted them to leave him alone. But ever since Sakura had shifted her focus after their first chunin exam, she had dropped the honorific from his name and had focused more on her training. She'd come into her own as a kunoichi. At 24, she was now the director of day-to-day operations at the hospital, one of the only doctors with clearance to treat Anbu members, and she was devising plans for a children's hospital. He respected her, and hearing the needy way she used the honorific only when she needed his cum inside her was kinky and a massive turn-on. Maybe it was also a sense of pride. Sasuke knew that she was too married to her work to seriously date, and Naruto would have an aneurism if he found out that "his precious Sakura-chan" was sleeping around with anyone, so Sasuke would bet his life that he was the only one giving her what she needed at the moment, and she was the only one taking his cum. That thought almost threatened to sour his mood, so he pulled Sakura onto his chest and wrapped his arm around her thigh, pulling it to rest over his lap. Once he had her settled, he moved his hand to cup her ass and began to let his body relax into sleep.
"Sasuke," Sakura laughed playfully, trying to slip out of his grasp, "let me clean off."
"Hn, shut up." He squeezed her ass with a smirk and then settled back into her bed. He could feel the tension release from her own muscles as she rested her head on his chest.
"One of these days, you'll tell me why you like it so much," She mumbled sleepily, finally letting her prior exhaustion catch up to her. Sasuke didn't respond, and finally let his own body rest.
Sakura awoke to the wonderful smell of coffee and fried food wafting into her bedroom. She rolled over, moving the tangled covers away from her legs and took a long, languid stretch. Her muscles felt delightfully tired and all of her joints popped with satisfaction: nothing like a good round of fucking followed by breakfast in the morning. Sakura grabbed one of Sasuke's shirts that she kept in case he was called to a mission while he was over and tossed it over body before using the bathroom and straightening out her hair. It really was about time she cut it again.
Sakura walked out to her kitchen to see Sasuke cooking while barely putting weight on his left leg. She rolled her eyes at his stubbornness but took in the delectable sight before her. Sasuke's back was full of thick, toned muscle from his shoulders down to the dimples on his lower back. His muscles moved with grace as he pushed the frying pan around and reached for seasoning. The hem of his pants sat dangerously low on his hips, and Sakura knew that if he turned around, she would see the exquisitely cut V muscles of his abdomen. Her eyes catalogued every inch of his back, making sure that there weren't any new scars or injuries he wasn't telling her about. Sakura was relieved to see that the marks on his back were the same, not even a superficial bruise added from his latest mission; she ignored the arrogant part of her brain that noted all the nail marks she'd left and that there were none from the civilian girl he'd been seeing for the last year.
Sakura shook her head at her pettiness and strode up to the kitchen counter. She hopped up, crossing her legs and grabbed the warm cup of coffee he'd prepared for her. Sasuke looked over at her, letting his eyes drag down his shirt then return to her eyes with a smirk on his lips.
"I'm not taking it off," She shrugged nonchalantly, smirking around the rim of her coffee cup as she took a sip.
"Good. If you did, I'd just have to fuck you on the counter, and we don't have time for that." Sasuke turned back to the fish he was frying and couldn't fight the smirk that widened when she gasped.
"Mou, you're so mean, Sasuke, and after I let you cum inside me," Sakura pouted and took another sip.
"Tch, that was more because you're needy. You would have thrown a fit if I didn't." He plated the fish over the rice and eggs he'd already finished and then turned to see her heated glare.
"You're not as cute as you think you are, Uchiha," Sakura huffed and dropped down from the counter, grabbing both of their cups and taking them to her dining table. Sasuke swallowed his laugh and carried their plates to the table, careful not to put too much weight on his injured ankle. Once they settled into the chairs, Sakura gently grabbed his foot and rested it on her lap. While he started eating, she allowed her chakra to soothe his pain and wrap around the damaged ligaments. She could feel his body relax as she focused on the irritated muscle that had had to overcompensate for all of his motion getting back to Konoha and having to stand to cook this morning. Sprained ankles were one of the most irritating injuries to a shinobi because so much of their movement relied on their ankle and a sprained ankle was the wimpiest sounding excuse to be out of top form. Once she'd completely healed the ligaments and tested his range of motion, she set his foot back to the ground and started eating her own breakfast.
"Hn." 'Thank you.'
"Sure thing. Just make sure you mention it when you go for your clearance physical. I don't want them missing it on your chart and me having to scold my staff for not noticing."
"Hn." 'Not a chance.'
"Honestly, why do I put up with you?" Sakura glared at him as she put a fork full of rice and eggs into her mouth. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of moaning at his cooking. Sasuke smirked at her as if to say it was obvious why she put up with him and Sakura flicked a grain of rice at him for his arrogance. Seriously, he was lucky his big cock, skill in bed, and his culinary skills matched his arrogance or she'd have killed him by now.
They ate in comfortable silence, Sakura mentally running through the things she needed to get done before her evening shift in the Anbu ward of the hospital and Sasuke mentally running through the mission report he'd written to make sure he'd catalogued everything…except for his ankle sprain. Sakura looked up to check his plate and saw that he was waiting for her to complete her meal before he finished dressing to leave. Sakura pushed her plate to the side to tell him it was ok for him to get ready, to which he nodded and went back into her room to grab his shirt and Anbu gear. Sakura followed him and leaned onto her door frame, watching as his abdominal and chest muscles stretched as he pulled his shirt over his head. If he didn't have to report to the Hokage, the hospital, and his clan, she'd definitely ride him all morning. That thought spurred her to think of someone else he should be checking in with.
"So, are you going to see her, your civilian girl?" Sakura asked, interested but not truly invested. This wasn't the first civilian girl Sasuke had been seeing; she was just the one who was lasting the longest. Sakura was fully enjoying turning the tables on all the times the boys of Team 7, including her own sensei, had run off her romantic prospects before she'd just given up.
"No." Sasuke snapped the buckles on his vest then slipped his shin guards into place followed by his arm guards.
"What, you've been away for a month and aren't going to her with in the first 24 hours? You're kind of bad at this whole romance thing, Sasuke," Sakura joked, covering her mouth to hide some of her laugh.
"When I need romance advice, I'll be sure not to ask you," Sasuke slid his snake mask in place, opened the window, and stepped out onto the balcony, shushinning away before she could retort. Sakura shook her head, closing her window and making her bed.
Honestly, Sakura felt bad for the poor girl. It was clear from the few times she'd met her that Kanami was obsessed with Sasuke. Not obsessed in the way that the girls in the academy had been obsessed, but…invested. Kanami looked at Sasuke as if he hung the stars in the sky, and no doubt she'd heard that Sasuke didn't stick around for long, not because he was a player, quite the opposite actually. Sasuke didn't waste his time on any girl he knew his clan wouldn't approve of. If anything, it was actually kind of endearing the way Sasuke was looking for a woman he could marry. It just didn't help that Sasuke hadn't made a decision about Kanami yet. Sakura doubted even Naruto knew if Sasuke was planning on asking her to marry him, and Sasuke had helped Naruto pick out Hinata's ring for goodness sakes!
Whatever Sasuke's thoughts on Kanami were was a mystery to Team 7, and every day Sasuke gave her hope that he would propose was another day the girl would be crushed if he didn't. But it really wasn't any of Sakura's business. She'd stepped out of it after Kanami had asked her point blank if what she and Sasuke were doing was in fact just stress relief, just a shinobi thing until they found companionship in a significant other. Sakura had been shocked that Sasuke had even told Kanami that much, since many civilian-shinobi relationships crumbled quickly due to the stress of missions, and Sasuke was an elite shinobi. That he'd even told Kanami meant that he saw her as someone who could stick around, and Sakura had reassured her that.
Getting out of her thoughts, Sakura focused on what she needed to do today besides worrying about Sasuke's love life. Sakura stripped out of his shirt and tossed it on the bed as her pajamas for the night and then went into her bathroom to get ready for the day.
Sasuke dropped his bag on the floor of his room, content to finally be done with his post-mission protocol. He understood why it was necessary for all shinobi who had been on long deployments to go through T&I psychological tests and the hospital's new mental and physical health screenings, but all he wanted to do was bathe and sleep for the next 12 hours before Naruto inevitably found out that he was back in the village. Though he appreciated his friend, he also didn't have the energy to deal with him right after a mission; that's why he went to Sakura first.
On his way to the bathroom, he felt the flair of familiar chakra and resisted the urge to sigh. He flashed his own chakra to let his brother know that he acknowledged him, then went into the bathroom to clean the scent of dirt and vanilla off of him. The heat of the water raining down on his tired muscles was heavenly, exactly what he needed after weeks of stalking his target and finally delivering the killing blow. Sasuke washed the grime from his body and hair with the Anbu-issued scentless soap, letting the water beat over his head and neck as he contemplated what Itachi had come to discuss. Since seeing the gates of Konoha, he had forced himself to focus only on his release and his duty to the village. Now that those things were taken care of, Sasuke knew he couldn't put off focusing on his duty to his clan for long.
Sasuke shut the water off, then stepped out of the stall to grab the towel hanging on his wall. He toweled himself off, rubbed on scentless deodorant, and brushed his teeth. His eyes caught the bottles of vanilla scented shampoo and conditioner Sakura mandated that he and Naruto keep available at their apartments, just like she kept spares of their products in case they needed a refuge for the night. The bottles seemed so innocent, but one whiff of that scent on the air and he was half aroused from the activities associated with the fragrance. Rinsing his mouth out, Sasuke threw on a gray shirt with the Uchiha crest displayed proudly on the back and a pair of black pants and walked out to his living room.
Itachi sat calmly on a traditional pillow, sipping his green tea contently. When he heard Sasuke's footsteps, he poured another cup of tea and passed a plate of small tomatoes to the empty side of the table. Sasuke nodded and popped a tomato into his mouth, chewing contently until Itachi was ready to speak.
"How was your mission, Otouto?" Itachi activated his sharingan to quickly scan over his little brother's body. Satisfied at not seeing any damage, Itachi's eyes bled back into their warm grayish-black.
"Fine, Nii-san. I completed it, of course." Sasuke sat stiffly, waiting for Itachi to get to the point. Beginning their conversation with otouto let Sasuke know that this wasn't a visit for pleasantries. The clan wanted something, and Sasuke knew exactly what it was. Itachi sighed and placed his tea down on the table.
"The elders weren't happy that you missed the meeting last month," Itachi gave him a small pitying smile.
"I'll have to tell them that I'm sorry for again defying their wishes," Sasuke grumbled. Those old coots were never happy with his actions. He almost regretted asking his father to let him sit in on meetings when he was 13; he would have had much less frustration with the decrepit crypt keepers if he hadn't been dealing with their criticism for years.
"They should be used to it by now," Itachi smirked. "They believed I was the difficult one, but it seems you have far surpassed me, Sasuke."
"I don't even see why they consented to me joining Anbu if they were going to complain with every mission," Sasuke resisted to urge to pout like he did when he and Itachi were children. Since joining Anbu, the council had been down his throat about taking missions that kept him away from the village long term. The council had encouraged Itachi to take Anbu missions, but with him, it was almost a blatant show of their distrust in his abilities.
"They thought I would have children by now," Itachi said frankly. Sasuke felt his stomach sink at his insensitivity. As Itachi's heir, it was incredibly risky for him to be in Anbu; Sasuke knew that, but it was still grating.
"How is Izumi?"
"Devastated. She started menstruating shortly after you left." Itachi picked up his teacup and took a sip to control his emotions. He and Izumi had been married for almost 10 years and she'd yet to have a successful pregnancy. While Itachi tried his best to comfort her, telling her that it would happen when the gods decided, and Izumi was trying her best to be strong and positive, the council was getting restless. They wanted an heir to secure the next generation, and as long as Izumi remained childless, that burden fell onto Sasuke's shoulders.
"You could talk to Sakura; I'm sure she'll know something, or she can speak to Lady Tsunade on Izumi's behalf."
Itachi shook his head. "Izumi is determined to do this naturally, and though she respects Hokage-sama, she is still a Senju. Izumi doesn't want that getting back to the clan; the council has people in discrete places." He took another sip of his tea, looking down into the small flecks of tea leaves as if they would give him the answer to his wife's infertility.
"So what, you're planning on waiting until the council annuls the marriage?" Sasuke scoffed. Itachi was as dedicated to the clan as anyone, the perfect son, but anyone could see how much he adored his wife. To annul the marriage would mean Izumi's permanent disgrace from the clan, and Itachi wouldn't stand by and let that happen.
"Sasuke," both brothers took a deep breath to relieve the tension in the room. Sasuke dreaded the answer to his next question, but he knew it must be asked. Sasuke laced his fingers together and rested his chin on his thumbs to cover his reaction as best as possible.
"How long until it's ready?"
"The meeting in 2 weeks." Itachi hadn't needed to ask what Sasuke meant. They both knew that he was talking about the list of suitable women the council would accept as Sasuke's bride. Since Itachi had yet to have children, Sasuke was his heir and Sasuke's wife would need to be prepared to take over the matriarchal duties of the clan when Sasuke took over if anything happened to Itachi. This contingency was why Sasuke had committed so seriously to dating. With civilian girls, he could test out the characteristics his wife needed to have without the expectation that he would ask her to marry him. If Sasuke had committed any time to a girl from the Uchiha clan, he would have been obligated to marry her, whether she would have made a good matriarch or not; to do anything but would just be cruel for her have to see him marry another clan member. If he'd dated a girl from another clan, Sasuke would have had to think of the political implications if he didn't marry her, and the Uchiha did not need another clan against them after all the Nidaime and village elders had done to ostracize the Uchiha.
That left civilian girls. He could easily compare them to his mother with little consequences. He could ask himself if she was timid or stood her ground, did she understand the requirements placed on elite shinobi, would she understand that she would have little say in whether or not her children became shinobi themselves? To be a clan matriarch was to handle the domestic concerns of the clan and to stand proudly by her husband, questioning his decisions or offering counsel in the privacy of their home.
Sasuke took a deep breath. He had 2 more weeks of freedom, or as much freedom as he could have. In 2 weeks, he'd be given a list of Uchiha women to court, and he would have to make his decision within the year. The only way to get out of the list would be to propose to Kanami, and he was nowhere near ready to do that; there was too much about his profession as a shinobi that she took offense to or didn't understand, not from a lack of explaining, or as much as Sasuke Uchiha explained anything. He was not looking forward to the issue she would press when he broke it off; it never was easy with civilian girls. Kunoichi shrugged their shoulders, understood, and they went their separate ways, often able to still be friends with their former flames. Civilian girls wanted to cry and throw things, wanted to replay every conversation, wanted to talk about love and devotion; it was a nightmare. Vaguely in the back of his mind, Sasuke acknowledged that he would have to talk to Sakura too; that it would be easy, but he had no desire to stop their arrangement before he was actually married...or at all for that matter.
Both brothers signed, picked up their teacups, and took a long sip. The demands of the clan were never easy, and there was only so much they could do to circumvent them.