When he released her lips, he was afraid his force had scared her because she stood perfectly still, water still cascading down one of her shoulders. His right arm was completely soaked and her towel was a pitiful puddle at her feet. As he reached to turn off the water, he realized she might be staying stiff and still of her own accord.
"Was it not what you hoped it would be?"
In contrast to the breakout of passion in the kitchen, this kiss had been not less passionate but darker, a little sader. Tenten was shaking now.
"I'll grab you another towel," he offered but she shook her head.
"I have all this pent-up feeling and I don't know how to release it."
Neji could understand that well. He simultaneously felt like devouring her whole with no control whatsoever and so afraid of misstepping that he was wracked with indecision. It was nice to be insecure together though. Like they were partners in their very own, private mission.
"Did you really think I am fuckable?"
"Still do. Always"
There was a smile forming at the corners of her lips and the look in her eyes mirrored the one from the kitchen more by the heartbeat. Neji didn't want to waste any time on this occasion. He pulled her out of the shower and all the anxiety bubbled over. Seeing Tenten weaken in the fight with Hanabi, having to come to her rescue, leaving her behind in the woods to disappear forever while he fulfilled the mission, - as though he didn't care about her, as though she wasn't the most important thing in the world to him, thinking he was allowed to kiss her just to have that reality torn away from him. It all spilled over into his frantic actions.
"Talk dirty to me again," he pleaded between hungry kisses.
"It's not something that happens on command."
Neji growled, said:
"Then we'll just have to get you in the mood because I'm dying to hear you sound like that again." He interrupted their kiss to add: "Also, I feel the same way about you."
Tenten was undressing him very efficiently now. Finally her nimble fingers paid off for him.
"Prove it," she breathed. That was a dare he couldn't let go unanswered. He hefted her up from the waist and moved them from the wet bathroom to the dry bedroom. They didn't quite make it to the bed though. Instead Neji set her down in front of his dresser and pushed her against it. Then he placed a hand on her back and felt between her legs. It felt so good touching her there that he couldn't get enough of it. Everything was soft, wet, pliant and accompanied by the sound of her sobbing voice.
"Tell me, is this what you wanted?"
"No, harder," she exclaimed.
He could fulfill that wish too. He used his fingers to penetrate her and took her hard against his dresser. The muscles in her arms held her upright more or less but everything else about her seemed weak to her knees.
When she'd come and he held her slumped in his arms, he realized she would have bruises across her thighs where he'd pressed her against the low dresser. He could still hear her sobs ringing in his ears. It had been like being in a trance. He felt weirdly fulfilled even though he hadn't come.
"Sorry," he breathed against her neck as he released her and pointed to her thighs. "This time it was me who got carried away. You're definitely worth more than a quick fuck against the furniture."
"Thanks. I guess. Maybe the next time can be more romantic."
"Next time?"
"Yeah, all bets are off now."
"Does that mean I might actually look at you?"
"Have at it. I've been naked this whole time."
As Tenten rubbed her thighs and took some deep breaths, Neji's eyes crawled over her. The first thing he noticed was that she had acquired a lot of alarming scars and that her arms and face were more tanned than the rest of her body. She was also a lot more muscular than he estimated his Tenten was and she had the stretch marks to go with it.
Then he let one of his fingers trace the curve of her breast.
"Oh yeah," he breathed.
"That's not something my Neji would say."
"I think we've already covered that your Neji is me, just with more inhibitions."
"Stop staring," she snapped out of the blue.
"Why?"
"I'm scared no one is ever going to look at me like that again."
"I'm sorry. I know this is tough for you. It's not exactly easy for me either."
"I need you to have some of those inhibitions. Otherwise this whole thing gets to be too scary."
"Ok. I'll reign it in," he promised, then joked: "Are you telling me no one has ever looked at you like this?"
"Plenty of people have seen me naked. But no one has looked at me quite this way,' she confessed. Her words made one thing very clear: whatever they did - whether he kept his inhibitions up or not - they just couldn't keep it light. There was too much substance between them. It made the atmosphere pregnant with years of emotion that just wouldn't go away so they could enjoy an easy-going one-night stand. Time travel made everything more complicated, even sex.
Without any pretense, Neji asked:
"Are you weak in the knees? Come here, let me help you."
He lent her his arm and together they tumbled onto the bed. There Neji was gentler in how he maneuvered them into a sitting position. He pulled her into his arms, so she could lean her back against his chest. Neji leaned against the wall while he sat and held Tenten on the bed. Then he began running his hands all over her body again, finding nooks and crevices and finally settling between her legs. He took his time to learn what she liked. It was exciting and new and Neji wanted to soak up as much of the experience as he could.
Tenten held onto his legs and got tenser and tenser until she came again. The same kind of satisfaction flooded Neji even though he had still found no release himself. Then they stumbled into another intimate conversation. It seemed they couldn't stay away from them, as though they were hungry for knowledge about the other.
"Do we need to worry about what time of the month it is for you?"
"No. I can't have children."
"You can't?"
"No, chemical weapon incident."
"You've really devoted your life to being a weapon's expert.
"Sure did."
"I knew you were going to be great sometime."
"No, you didn't."
"I would argue I had an inkling."
"No, you really didn't."
He stopped arguing with her. He wasn't sure whether he or she was right. Obviously he'd thought about her a lot, idolized her. But then he'd also put her down many times. He realized he'd done her a much greater disservice. In his struggle to just control every thought about her, all the obsessive thoughts had gained strength and he'd never let himself just think about her as a person instead of how she affected him.
"If I didn't know that, then I was being an idiot," he confessed. "Tenten, I hope you know that… regarding the awkwardness since you've arrived… I-I'm in lov-"
"Nope. Don't say it."
"Fine. But I am. Both versions of you, which - let me tell you - is rather confusing."
"You've known me for less than a week."
"Doesn't matter. I like sweet, young, open you and I like this you."
"What's this me like?"
"This you is scarred, careful, … a lot less sweet. Kinda scary. And incredibly sexy. But you're also guarded. I don't know what your life is like exactly but I imagine it isn't easy."
"I also don't exactly know what my life is like but from what I've remembered, it's indeed not easy."
"Do you often get to let go? I noticed you exploded pretty heavily back there in the kitchen."
"No, I guess I am a lot like the version of you that lives with inhibitions. I think I have to be in control a lot back in my time." Tenten's voice was rough as she continued: "Sorry again. Been holding something back."
"I told you before there's nothing to apologize for."
"Are you going to explode a little?"
"Yeah, at some point," he put it off. "First, I want to enjoy…"
Before he finished his sentence he turned her around and let them slide down onto the bed until they were stretched out. Then he leaned into her and nipped at her lower lip, gaining traction slowly as though he wanted to cherish every little part of her mouth.
Strangely enough, he didn't feel like exploding. He felt like holding her until she vanished from his timeline. He felt like getting to know her, all of her. But he was aware she wasn't open for discussing her feelings for him. Perhaps she would be open to opening a window into her soul, even if it was a part of it that belonged to someone else.
"Tell me about you and Lee."
"That's a weird request right after sex."
"Not from where I'm standing."
"You know what? At least it's comforting that you and my Neji have one thing in common; you're always direct, to the point."
Neji just continued to nip at her lips, her earlobes and her collar bone until she was ready to open up to him.
"There's actually a reason why I was so adamant you didn't want to hear the story about Lee and me," she confessed.
"What's that?"
"We gave it a go after you'd died."
They were too close and entangled for Tenten to see Neji's face but she could tell that got his attention.
"I think we were each just looking for something. We went back to best friends after a while, a little wiser about ourselves and each other."
"I'm sorry it didn't work out."
"No, you're not." Tenten was calling him out on his bullshit a lot tonight. It meant Neji needed to rethink most of the things he said. He wasn't used to that. But then again he wasn't used to speaking freely either. Perhaps this is what it meant to speak without inhibitions; you had to sometimes admit that your first thoughts were wrong.
"Maybe we're both right," he confessed. "I realize that I have some dark traits that I'd rather not admit to and that one of them is possessiveness. But I am truly, deeply sorry that an opportunity for happiness didn't work out for you."
Apparently this satisfied Tenten as being truthful enough.
"It just wasn't the same with Lee."
"What wasn't?"
"The spark."
"Hm?"
"You know, that feeling of tension, of electricity that spreads over your body when you're close and we touch. I can't be sure but I suspect you feel something similar?"
This revelation made Neji jerk to a stop.
Bereft of his pleasant nuzzling, Tenten got nervous and scooted away so she could see him. His features were closed off in an eerie way.
"How long have you been feeling this spark?"
Tenten could tell the answer to this question meant a lot to Neji. She just couldn't tell whether in a good or bad way, so she opted for the plain truth.
"Ever since we were teenagers."
"So, you're telling me that you haven't been attracted to me since you travelled back in time and met the uninhibited me… You're telling me you felt about the imperious, insufferably controlled Neji the same way you feel about me? All those years -..."
He couldn't even finish the sentence, he was so emotional. And not in a good way as was becoming more obvious by the second. With every heartbeat he seemed more upset, having gotten up on his knees and talking in a loud, hectic voice.
Tenten stood her ground, metaphorically, while staying still where she lay on the mattress. The atmosphere between them had shifted so dramatically that she needed something to ground herself. That's why Tenten was just focusing on the feeling of her weight pressing into the bedding as Neji saw his life flash before his eyes, seeing more than he ever had before.
"All those training hours, the missions…?"
She nodded.
"The afternoon your shirt got wet and everyone laughed?"
She nodded again.
"And all the years leading up to my death…?"
She was glued to the mattress, staring at him.
Neji's feelings were so different from what they had been before that he choked on the sensation. There was an irrational urge to punish her. Punish her for all the time they could've had together if she'd just told him. If she'd just let him know, he wouldn't be stuck in this impossible situation. Now going back to his sweet Tenten and pretending like he didn't want to rip her clothes off seemed impossible. With just a few words, this Tenten had destroyed his future.
He'd thought he was eliciting completely new emotions in her. Emotions that had began to develop after she'd arrived in his time line and he'd finally been able to be honest with her. Instead he found out she'd been feeling this way about him all along. It meant that the Tenten he trained with every day also felt for him the same way. It meant that now he wouldn't only have to pretend he wasn't crazy about her but he'd also have to pretend he didn't know she felt at least something for him. And that seemed impossible.
However, if he wanted to make sure that the future occurred the way it already had, he needed to keep his feelings a secret and ignore his knowledge about her feelings. And if he couldn't do that, it meant he'd just have to stay away from her completely. He wouldn't be able to see her at all anymore unless he wanted to risk changing the future. That didn't seem wise as it would be messing with forces of nature barely understood. Wreaking havoc on the consistency of time didn't sound smart. So all he was left with was a throbbing anger that she couldn't have told him she felt a spark too at some point in her life.
The anger was too much for him to handle, so he needed to get away from her. Fast. He lurched up from the bed and crashed into his dresser. The piece of furniture flung the painful memory of passionate intensity at him. That, too, was more than he could handle. He ended up punching the dresser. One bloody fist and a splintered edge of furniture later, Neji didn't know what to do with himself. He felt trapped again.
Trapped in his own home. He had been afraid of letting future Tenten live here. He'd worried it would create too many memories in what was supposed to be his safe haven. He'd been right. In fact, nowhere was safe from her. He now had intimate, intense memories of her in every nook of his home.
He contemplated taking a shower, but his mind was filled with the feel of her wet towel right before she dropped it. The sofa in his den just held images of her sleeping or discussing mission plans. The kitchen was the worst with memories of her letting him get a glance at an intensity he couldn't begin to comprehend. He turned back to where she still lay on his bed.
"Where the hell am I supposed to go from here?"
His eyes were wild and she didn't answer.
Instead she sat up and curled her finger in an unmistakable command. Her features were serious as he neared her. This time Neji felt the strength of her hands as she pulled him down and onto the bed. She wasn't quite gentle as she made him lay down supinely, his legs not even on the mattress. She never kissed his mouth but continued to nip at his entire body in a way that channeled all the anger into an intense feeling in his groin. Her caresses were a lot rougher than his had been, her teeth sinking into his flesh, her nails leaving streaks. But he needed the intensity of it. He was squirming beneath her.
"I think it's time to explode," she commanded.
Grabbing her hips, he switched their positions. Her eyes were so big. He couldn't look into them. So he turned Tenten around and covered her back in bites. The sounds she made in response were part pain, part pleasure. It mirrored his own feelings.
This time, when he penetrated her with his finger, he was a lot rougher, screwing her as soon as he felt her wetness. He waited only until her sounds got loud again, indicating she was ready; then he retrieved his hand and entered her completely in a rather rushed manner.
His arm closed around her torso, so he could press her to him, needing to feel her skin as he drove into her. He was even rougher now and it did feel like an explosion.
Afterwards, he knew he'd hurt her somewhat.
Once he had released her from his arm's iron grip, she got up off his bed quickly. He could tell she limped on her way to the bathroom and wouldn't look at him. Neji bit his lip. The apology got stuck in his throat.
"How did you know that was… what I needed?"
"I made you follow your own advice: Stop thinking."
At that point it burst out of him.
"Sorry!" He swallowed hard. "I just can't seem to stop hurting you."
"Likewise," she replied and vanished from his sight into the bathroom.