disclaimer: Skip Beat! is the exclusive creative property of Yoshiki Nakamura.

AN: Things are about to get intense! We finally arrived at the smut!

Trigger warning for light bondage and resistance play/dubcon elements.

Enjoy! ;)

Chapter Eight

Without waiting for an answer, Kyoko began pressing kisses to his throat. For half a second, Kuon considered stepping away or pulling her off of him, but his heart wasn't in it. How could it be? Truth be told, there simply wasn't enough blood left for his brain in this moment, let alone his heart. It felt as though every drop had migrated south. His mouth continued to work uselessly, trying and failing to find the words, any words, that could mitigate this situation.

All coherence had abandoned him the second she had emerged from his sheets like Venus rising out of the seafoam.

She was beautiful. Obviously, she was beautiful. To this day, he still got distracted watching her talk and eat and laugh and move when she was fully clothed, so that had hardly been a surprise.

But seeing so much of that beauty all at once - every curve and arch and swell of it - and coming straight towards him was a shock on par with witnessing an erotic oil painting come to life and step out of its frame. It was like being blindfolded for years only to be thrust headfirst into the Taj Mahal at sunrise. It was like being a child traveling with his parents and touring the Imperial Palace or one of Florence's palazzos, having never known places like that existed.

Overwhelming. Dizzying. Almost paralysing.

The kisses stopped, and for a moment, it seemed this moving masterpiece was taking pity on him.

"Open your eyes," he heard her pleading. "Please. Open your eyes for me, Kuon-kun."

He did so reluctantly, making absolutely certain that he was looking at her face and not anywhere else. Gradually it came into view, flushed and worried and heartbreakingly sweet. A shy smile began to form as she seemed to stare directly into either his soul or whatever ragged remains of it hadn't been ripped clean from his body in the last two minutes.

"As green as ever," she remarked breathily, drinking in the sight of him with a gusto that made him feel as naked as she was. "Like gemstones. Thank you for letting me see."

My eyes. She's talking about my eyes, he thought unsteadily, as she brushed her lips against his and he tried (with very minimal success) not to kiss her back. She's naked, pressed against me, telling me how nice my eyes are, yet somehow she's not trying to seduce me? Is she trying to kill me? Is this just a roundabout murder attempt?

"Wa ... Wait," he managed to choke out, shutting his eyes once more and resting his chin on her shoulder. "Kyoko, this isn't ... You shouldn't -"

"You told me not to run. I can't run without my clothes," she said with finality. "I did as you asked, didn't I?"

"Kyoko-chan, please, wait a min- "

"I'm done waiting," she insisted. "You've made me wait long enough, Kuon."

Kuon's eyes bulged open. His ears were ringing. I've made you WHAT now?

There it was again, that fatal whiplash effect of hers. Only it was made all the worse when he realized that he was now staring straight down at her ass as he held her against his chest. He hadn't meant to, but there it was. Right in his line of sight and even more delectable than he had imagined. His arms, still wrapped around her waist, tightened ever so slightly as he fought the urge to reach down and grab a handful of her.

Unfortunately, Kyoko seemed to take this is as some form of acquiescence. Turning her head, she caught the side of his mouth with her's. Then her lips found his in a kiss both sweet and insistent. His eyes drifted shut once again as pleasure began to flood his veins, clouding his mind until he practically forgot what day it was. She shifted restlessly, rubbing her breasts against him in the process. He almost forgot his own name.

I'm going to die here, he thought hazily. She's going to kill me and be listed as my cause of death.

His wholehearted belief that this would come to pass was further solidified by what she did next. Kuon suddenly felt her hands in his hair, her fingers cleaving to his skull. Kyoko's tongue began to snake into his mouth with a demanding vigor she had never put him on the receiving end of before. She moaned deep in her throat as an utterly helpless feeling took hold of him. The sound combined with the sensation to clang through him like an enormous gong ringing at close range.

If this is her when she's not trying, he thought miserably, I haven't got a chance if she really puts her mind to it. I need to pull the plug before this gets out of hand. Pull away. Pull away.

Kyoko's fingers drifted, soft as snowflakes, down to the nape of his neck as her tongue continued to caress his. He felt the touch all the way down his spine, and the room became hazy as his eyes began to drift shut.

... AWAY, DAMN IT.

He broke the kiss and tried to ignore the bereft feeling he had separating from her. It didn't work, but he tried.

"Stop, stop. This isn't," he tried to catch his breath,"this isn't right."

"Do you want me, Kuon?" she asked bluntly, those beautiful breasts heaving slightly against him as she, too, tried to breathe evenly.

"Y-Yes, of course, I do! That's not the point -"

"It is the point. It's exactly the point," she insisted. "It is the only point! You said you would give me what I needed, Kuon. This is it."

Panicked thoughts began to run through his head at a speed that was almost as dizzying as Kyoko's behavior. Kuon hated to admit it, but he was well and truly cornered. He couldn't cite work or anything like that as being a roadblock; apart from his semi-forced hiatus, the only thing he had were contract negotiations later in the week with Yashiro, so there was nothing preventing him from staying up for hours. He couldn't cite unpreparedness because his bedside table had several condoms and two types of lubricant in it, hidden under a stack of finance magazines. He couldn't even cite the old standby of not wanting to rush her into anything - she was the one rushing him!

Enough, he thought resolutely. You've been with women before, for god's sake. It's been awhile, but there's nothing to panic about here. We'll just talk this out and -

Kyoko leaned back suddenly and frowned up at him, the movement startling him into averting his gaze lest it dip too far down the path of the chain around her neck. Her hands reached up, clasped the sides of his head and turned him back towards her. She didn't say a word. She only narrowed her eyes at him as if daring him to try to look away again. He was reminded of Sayako, gazing into the battered husk of her husband, intent upon unspooling him from eyebrow to ankle for his cowardice.

Kuon sighed. It was just as well. Looking away from her did absolutely nothing to help anyway. The indelible image of her had been seared into the back of his eyelids. He closed his eyes, and he saw her. He looked away, and he saw her. He might as well just resign himself to looking and get used to suffering that way.

"Have I ever denied you?" she asked quietly. "Have I ever denied you in that sort of way? Have I ever told you to stop when we've been together before? That it was too much? That I didn't want to go further?"

He searched her eyes for even a hint of doubt or hesitation and didn't find a shred of either.

"No," Kuon conceded wearily.

"Do you think I wasn't willing?" she continued, eyes drifting to his mouth again as she reminisced. "Do you think I wasn't thinking about this? How this would be? How you would feel? Do you think I haven't imagined it?"

His eyes closed again, as if that would shut out the words she was saying an inch from his face.

"Well?" she prompted.

"I thought ... it would be best to take things slow," he said. "I didn't want to pressure you."

"I've had the implant since we started seeing each other, Kuon! I told you about it a week after I got it, and you haven't even - I mean, we haven't - !"

Kuon thought back to that moment rather fondly. Kyoko had been so shy about telling him she was on birth control, she had only been able to deliver the news through the locked door of his bathroom. And even then it had been after obliquely hinting at it for about two hours. He had praised her for being so prepared and more or less made up his mind that nothing was going to come of that any time soon.

When had it all changed? Where did this come from? It had only been a few months ago that the topic of intercourse between the two of them would have sent her into a state of either near paralysis or, if he teased her about, incoherent babbling. Finding out about her erotic dreams had been one thing, but he truly hadn't expected to face off against a succubus intent upon draining him dry.

She blinked sweetly up at him, all wounded innocence and confusion.

"Do you just ... not want to? I mean, at all?" she asked sadly, reluctantly beginning to pull away. "I hadn't actually considered you might not w-want -"

The hurt on her face sent him into a panic, and he found himself yanking her back against him. Partially to reassure her, to make sure she didn't get the wrong idea, but also so he wouldn't be obliterated by another uncut look at her. In his haste, he ended up giving more reassurance than he intended:

"Yes, I want to!" he blurted out. "It's all I can think about half the ... !"

Her eyebrows lifted, her head tilting curiously.

"... time," he finished feebly.

Subtle, he thought, watching Kyoko's eyes widen at his outburst. Very subtle.

"O-Oh ... Then why did you insist on waiting?"

"I-I didn't think I was insisting," he sputtered. "It wasn't deliberate! I mean, it was, but - ! I wasn't just going to attack you out of the blue. I thought you would tell me when you were ready."

"Is that not what I'm doing right now?" she asked pointedly. "Do you still think I'm not ready? You know how I ... how I think of you now. You saw it with your own eyes, Kuon."

The journal. The Pandora's box that had gotten him into this predicament.

"If you makes you feel better ... I could consider this the price for reading it in the first place."

Kuon blinked.

"Wouldn't you like to do this with me," she whispered, curling her fingers in his hair as she did, "so we can call it even? So we can kiss and make up?"

The psychic equivalent of radio static blared in his head. There were no words. None at all.

She began to pepper him with kisses again, her lips lighting up every single solitary receptor in his body. The kisses were more adamant now, the suction and bite of her mouth so exquisite he could almost believe she had located a nerve running directly from his neck to his groin.

"I really don't think - "

"Stop thinking," she countered, her breath ghosting along the wet path of her predations. "I can't think when I'm around you. Why should you get to think when I can't?"

It sounded so reasonable when she put it that way. Especially with her lips unraveling every sane thing he had ever thought in his life.

"You've had a long night," he said weakly. "You're not in the right state of mind for this sort of thing."

"Why is that?"

The question was barely out of her mouth before she resumed ravaging his neck. Her teeth found exactly the right spot - right at the juncture where his neck met his shoulder - to make his knees wobble like an untried teenager's. For a moment he lost his place in the conversation and just submitted to the sensations she was provoking.

God help me, she's like a surgeon with that mouth, he howled inside, all the while trying not to imagine what other marvels she could work with it. Buddha, Yahweh, Allah, please, Whoever is listening, give me strength.

"You're crying right now, for one thing," he hedged. Strictly speaking, she really wasn't crying anymore, but the few tears left on her cheeks had yet to fully dry, and he needed every excuse he could muster. Animal instinct was very close to hijacking his conscience, and then where would they be?

"I'll probably cry during, too," she said before she raised her head to nip at his earlobe. "Do you want to find out?"

Yes, he cried out silently. Yes, I do, damn it all to hell.

"St-stop that, Kyoko, listen to me ... "

"If you're waiting for me to back down, it's not going to happen. I have nothing to lose, remember?"

There was an echo of her earlier sorrow in her voice. That note of despair brought back a semblance of his mind, which seized upon it instantly.

"Nothing to lose?" Kuon asked sharply.

Placing one last kiss on his jaw, she pulled back and gave him an unsmiling stare that chilled him. "I'm still not convinced you won't disappear someday. Possibly even someday soon. At least give me something to remember you by."

A bit of the steel missing from Kuon's spine returned in that moment as he was suddenly, almost violently reminded why they were here in the first place. His heart began to pound with the anger and hurt that had been temporarily pushed aside. "We're still on that? After I've told you and told you - ?"

"You can tell me all you like, Kuon. That's not going to convince me," she said coldly. "I've been fooled before. By words that were less pretty than yours. If there's nothing behind them, then they mean nothing to me."

The looming spectre of Sho Fuwa daring to show its face in his bedroom was all it took. The decision was made. One might argue the decision had been made long before this moment.

He let go of her abruptly.

Before she could go into any kind of freefall off of the bed, he placed his hand to her stomach and pushed her off of her knees so that she landed on her back with a yelp. She floundered for a moment, then immediately snatched one of the pillows to cover her torso, exposed to his gaze now that she wasn't plastered against him. In almost the same moment, Kuon advanced on her, crawling onto the bed so that he loomed directly over her.

"So saying it won't convince you, hmm?"

Kyoko stared up at him, adamant. "No."

His hand found her thigh and traced the supple swell of it with his finger. He dragged it from her hip to her knee. "But doing this will?"

"... Y-Yes!"

He looked at her for a long moment, his hand moving back up her leg. Without breaking eye contact, he changed course, slipping his hand underneath the pillow she was using as a shield. She gasped as she felt his hand cupping her mound, his thumb dipping down between her lips to find her swollen clit. He leaned down as though he were going to kiss her, but instead he spoke softly, all the while moving his thumb in a upward motion that made her head feel light.

"I'm going to remember you said that," he said gravely as he watched her shudder. "So you'd better be sure about this, Kyoko-chan."

Before Kyoko could reassure him, Kuon kissed her on the forehead, slid back off of the bed and stood up. He reached back between his shoulder blades, balled up the fabric in his fist and began to pull the shirt off.

Oh.

Whenever they had ... gotten together before, Kuon generally went out of his way to not disrobe in front of her.

It was a courtesy she really hadn't asked him for, but she was usually too tongue-tied at that point to tell him it was unnecessary. Even when turning in for the night, he stepped out of sight to undress or change, so it had been a while since she had seen him shirtless. She had felt his bare skin against her often enough, but that was generally in the dark when she clung to him as she drifted off to sleep or when her eyes squeezed shut as he brought her to climax with his hand or his thigh. And she typically tried not to ogle him by the light of dawn, if for no other reason than she didn't want him getting the wrong idea while she still had morning breath.

Evidently, all of this meant that her memory of his body needed some updating.

Oh ... wow.

Kyoko had thought that, despite how wide and solid he felt in comparison to her frame, that he had the lanky physique of a swimmer. Seeing him in all (or part of) his glory now, she realized his build was closer to that of a sprinter. The muscle, though lean, was more dense and in much sharper relief. Was it her nerves that made him seem bigger so suddenly? Or had she really been avoiding the reality of him for so long? She grew warm, almost feverish as she looked him over, thinking of how easily he could pick her up. He didn't even need both arms to do it, he was that strong.

Would he do it again?

He only did that because I acted out, she thought, eyes still tracing every potent inch. He wouldn't do that again. Would he? Not if I don't give him a reason. Oh, god, do I want to give him a reason? What would that entail? How is this going to work? What if he changes his mind? What if I change my mind? Oh, god, oh, no, I'm staring. I'm staring! He sees me staring!

Kuon, dropping his shirt into Kyoko's discarded pile of clothes, arched a brow at her blatant appraisal and beet-red face. She squeezed her eyes shut as if to block out the sun itself and pulled the pillow up to her face for good measure, though that was partially to hide the blush she felt emblazoned on her face.

"Sorry!"

"About what?" she heard him scoff. "Why are you covering your face?"

"I was staring!"

Silence, followed by the slight groan of the mattress as he joined her on the bed. Then she heard him chuckling.

"... And?" he prompted. "What's wrong with that?"

"I d-don't want to be rude."

"If there was ever a time to be 'rude', Kyoko-chan," he said, his voice much closer now, "I think it would be now. I, for instance, intend to stare at you quite a bit."

"What?"

"I already am, in fact."

"Well, cut it out!"

"... I'm almost certain we'll need to look at one another for this, Kyoko-chan. Unless you plan to be facing away during the act itself. Is that how you want your first time to be?"

Another pointed silence. She slid the pillow back down, uncovering her face. He was poised directly over her.

"Is that how you want my first time to be?" she asked in all seriousness, tilting her head curiously as she seemed to weigh the possibility.

"Don't get ahead of yourself," he warned, trying (and failing) not to imagine himself ramming into her from behind until she screamed. "I still haven't agreed yet, now have I?"

Kyoko groaned. Of course. He was going to be difficult about this. "What, do you want me to write it in blood first?"

He grinned. "That won't be necessary. I just want to hear you say it."

She stared up at him, looking like she really would have preferred writing it in blood.

"Eh?!"

"I want you to say the words. I need to know before we go any further. Tell me what you want to happen here."

Kyoko grumbled into the pillow she was squeezing for dear life. Then she felt his hand on her thigh again, and any thoughts of resistance evaporated.

"Come on, don't be shy," he whispered. "You're so close to getting what you asked for."

Kuon watched her. Would this be her breaking point? Kyoko had been bold - exceedingly bold - up until now, but actually telling him what she wanted him to do in straightforward terms? What she wanted them to do together? She could be disconcertingly direct (the last few minutes being a prime example), but in matters like this, she often expressed things in a roundabout way. Which side would win out this time?

The pillow slid down slightly, revealing her face. "I ..."

His eyebrows raised. Oh?

"I ... I want us to b-become one."

A shiver ran through him. Even so timidly worded, that breathless tone left him in no doubt whatsoever as to what she was asking him to do. He started to sit up, intending to get a condom out of his bedside drawer. Kyoko, evidently still gathering steam, continued:

"I want you inside. Of me."

Whoa.

"... H-Hard."

WHOA.

Kuon cleared his throat, trying to cover his shock. "A-Alright, I understand, thank you."

"That last part is important!" she rushed on before she could lose her nerve.

Kuon stared at her, taken aback once again. Does she think I'm not hard right now? Does she not know I've been half-erect for the last goddamn hour? There's no way -

"I-I mean, I don't want you to be ... how you usually are. I don't want you to be gentle."

Kuon froze.

Swerve. Tire screech. Whiplash.

He blinked rapidly as the entire evening up to that point seemed to flash before his eyes like a near-death hallucination. It was truly neverending with this woman.

"You don't want me ... to be gentle?"

The words flicked at a part of him he had only caught glimpses of, most recently during their confrontation in the LME parking lot and their showdown in his living room. A part of him that wasn't at all inclined to be gentle with her and was stirred at the prospect of acting accordingly. A part of him he reflexively held in check every time he touched her. Perhaps even the very same part of him that didn't want her to be gentle with him either. The part that had compelled him to ask her to show him no mercy for reasons that had almost nothing to do with wanting her forgiveness.

He took a deep breath.

Calm down, he thought, coaxing the thing back into its cage. She doesn't know what she's asking. This isn't some cue to act like a barbarian.

But, of course, Kyoko wasn't done yet.

She barrelled onward, not so much emboldened by her outburst, but rather too far down the rabbit hole to turn back now. All she could think at this point was that, if she was going down in flames asyo she suspected, then she had better make it count. She sent up a quick, silent prayer that she wouldn't regret what she was about to say to him.

"I ... Look, this isn't going to make any sense, but whenever we've d-done this kind of thing before," she said, picking up momentum, "I can tell you're holding back. I can feel it. You treat me like a porcelain doll, and it makes me feel like you're ... like you're doing it with a fan instead of me."

His stomach dropped. His ears began to burn.

Oh, really?

It wasn't enough to merely say that the cage door was open at this point. The cage had fallen to a million pieces, and the thing inside it was now awake. Awake and agitated and moving about at an alarming speed.

Kyoko kept going, unaware that Kuon was no longer the only entity she was addressing.

"I-I'm not saying I don't enjoy it or you're not good at it or anything like that! Y-You're a considerate sort of person, I know this is a lot to ask, but it's just ... Wh-When you hold back like that, it feels like you're performing. Not like you really want it. Like you really want .. me. It makes me feel like you're with a fan, just going through the motions so you can say you did your due diligence!"

The thing inside began to warp and expand, no longer constricted to its original form.

"I ... I want to know that you choose me. That you want me the way I want you!" she went on, voice ragged. "I don't want your pity or courtesy or whatever you want to call it! If due diligence is all you have to give me, we can stop right now!"

His eye twitched, and that orphan fragment finally pierced his bloodstream, flowing through him like molten lava. Taking his very form, guiding his movements, accessing his thoughts to give itself a voice after being silent for so long.

That sounded like a fucking cue to me, it said.

The spell of helpless awe she had cast on him broke. There was only single-minded determination, frustrated desire and wounded ego left in its wake as that part of him finally unfurled itself, eager to prove her wrong. He stared down at her, every detail becoming hyperreal as everything that wasn't her faded into the background. She was still clutching the pillow for modesty against her torso and hips, those delicious legs bent so that her knees were together. She had said all of this without looking at him, her head turned to one side and her eyes squeezed shut as her face flushed a bright red.

He could actually feel his mouth watering at the sight of her, shaking like a leaf in his bed when he hadn't even begun to give her a reason to shake. So much bravery and ferocity bound up in such a delicate package. Tender affection broke through the erotic bloodlust, the final ingredient in this bizarre cocktail of emotion.

However badly she may have just insulted him (and however badly he was about to make her pay for it), it clearly hadn't been easy for her to say these things to him, to give him these vital instructions. His objective therefore was crystal-clear.

I'll make sure you love this. I won't give you a choice but to love this.

Kyoko cracked her eyes open and blinked several times. He hadn't responded. There's no way he didn't hear her. Why wasn't he saying anything?

She turned her head, hazarding a glance up at him. Kuon was nodding his head slowly, glowering down at her. With a jolt, she was reminded of how he had looked at her in the parking lot, when he had dropped his gentlemanly pretenses and put a stop to her rampage with so little effort.

Oh. Oh, no. Oh, god. Have I done it? Have I finally gone too far?

Then Kuon smiled.

It wasn't a ... very comforting smile, but it was a smile. A smile that somehow made her feel more naked than she already was, as though his eyes had burned the pillow she was holding to ash. As though he could see straight through the skin, muscle, tendon and organs straight into her very essence. It was the smile she imagined a demon might have as it stood in the darkened corner of the bedroom, watching her do things no one was meant to see.

... Too far. Definitely too far.

Kyoko tried to smile back, but it felt more like a grimace, so she gave up. She squeezed her eyes shut once again and dropped her head back onto the duvet.

"This is why I didn't want to talk," she groaned. "None of this is coming out right! K-Kuon, I - !"

The next thing she knew the pillow she was holding was ripped out of her grasp. Before she could even think to grab for it, his hands were on her, and she was flipped onto her stomach. Impulse dictated that she try to either crawl forward or sit up. She got maybe an inch or two before she felt two strong legs pinning hers together. Then she felt Kuon's weight pressing her down, trapping her beneath his heavy frame.

"Kuon! What - ?"

Her eyes widened as his right hand suddenly came into view, close to her face. His palm flattened firmly over her mouth, stifling the words.

"Mmmph!"

She tried saying more, tried moving her head, but his hand wouldn't budge. She tried reaching up to pull his hand away, but her limbs were frozen. Kyoko fell silent, heart thumping as she waited for his next move. He hadn't covered her nose, so she could still breath just fine. And he didn't appear to be in any hurry now that she couldn't move.

She shifted underneath him and gave a muffled whimper when she felt that same bulge she had felt before, much harder now and pressed more firmly against her from behind. She heard his breath, ever so slightly labored, by her left ear. And then she heard his voice, low and calm and brimming with sweet malevolence that radiated through the room like a heat wave.

"Do you know what a love language is, Kyoko-chan?" he asked.

She blinked, taken aback by these words. A love ... what?!

Her eyes darted back and forth. She didn't know of any such thing. The very idea was foreign to her. More importantly, did he expect her to answer without being able to talk? She shook her head as best she could. It barely moved, but he understood and seemed satisfied with the effort.

"It's very simple, really. You and I and everyone else," he explained, "have a way in which they want to be loved, above all others. That way is their love language."

Where is he going with this? Do I want to go where he's going? God, what have I done? How mad is he right now? Will - ?

The panicked onslaught of her thoughts was cut off when she felt him shifting on top of her, as if he were getting comfortable. His weight eased the slightest bit off of her, his hips grinding against her in the process. He grunted slightly between clenched teeth and repeated the motion slowly, almost luxuriating in it this time. This set off a stream of fireworks between her legs as she felt that thrilling hardness digging into the back of her thighs.

Stifling a moan, Kyoko shuddered at the sensation of being rubbed against, of being treated so crudely. She wriggled restlessly, exacerbating that sensation to the point where her shaking became too pronounced to escape his notice.

Apart from an amused exhale, Kuon didn't acknowledge the mess he was making of her. He continued:

"Some prefer to spend quality time. Others prefer gifts," he said, his unoccupied hand reaching around to toy with the pendant around her neck. "There's acts of service, words of affirmation and physical touch. Those are the five primary ways that people either love or want to be loved. Do you understand me so far, Kyoko-chan?"

She nodded desperately, the motion once again unable to dislodge his hand even a little.

"Good."

The hand on her necklace slid away, following a burning path along her neck, then her shoulder. He sat up, making her shiver as that hand slid along her spine, all the way down to the small of her back before it lifted off of her. She heard the unmistakable metal clink of his belt buckle. The sound spurred her heartbeat into a gallop. Her breath came faster through her nostrils, little bursts of air that warmed the hand still pressed to her mouth. She heard his voice once again, no longer by her ear, but right above her head.

"Perhaps it's time we started speaking each other's language. Hmm?"

Oh. Oh, god. What does that mean?

The words and that sonorous pitch set off another chain reaction inside of her. It was as though her body understood exactly what he meant, even if her rational mind was scrambling to decode a straightforward meaning. Her body won out, becoming embarrassingly pliant beneath him as the tension began to drain out of her despite the very real apprehension she still felt. She didn't nod or shake her head or try to speak this time in response to his question. There didn't seem to be any point, and they both knew it.

"In case you can't tell, I love with my words, Kyoko-chan," he said, leaning back down to whisper into her ear again. "I praise you, I compliment you, I try to talk to you every chance I get. And I tell you I love you. I tell you, and I tell you, and I fucking tell you ..."

There was a light thud as something hit the bed next to her.

She glanced over to her left.

It was Kuon's belt.

The sight of it made her skin burn from scalp to sole, the anticipation so acute she could pass out from it, almost wished she could pass out just for a reprieve from the wanting and the waiting.

"... but you still don't seem to hear me," he finished.

She tried to speak, tried with all her might to be heard. To deny it, to apologize, to explain. Kuon's grip on her face tightened. Taking this wordless cue, she did as he commanded and promptly shut up.

"Now you, on the other hand ... Your language is touch. You don't just like to be touched, Kyoko-chan," he growled. "You need to be touched. You've been begging for me to touch you this entire time."

Yes. God, yes, she thought desperately, unable to run from the truth even in her mind.

"These languages can work in the opposite direction. When used poorly or maliciously, they can be harmful. For instance, I'm much more easily hurt," he hissed, "by words as a result. Like when you say I treat you like a fan. Or when my words mean nothing to you and you say as much. When you lie to me. Or when you tell finally tell me the truth and think you can take it back, Kyoko-chan."

He rubbed his mouth against the back of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair. The feeling had her mind drifting hazily back to the dreams that were too X-rated for her journal, too incriminating to be put on paper. Her heart banged in her chest, nearly out of control as these uncanny echoes blurred the lines between real and unreal.

And in that strange middle ground, she began to think as though this were a dream, affected by the will of her desire rather than her strength and subject to the whims of a dream's logic.

He hadn't let her go. He had even told her before that she wouldn't get away from him. He was hurt and angry, but ... he could forgive her. Somehow. All she had to do was find the way.

The need to finally, truly and deeply reconcile - the need to make this right - took hold. It added it's own flavor to the witch's brew of lust and chagrin boiling over within her, its taste intoxicating and heady, much like the man holding her hostage.

Kyoko made a sound then. There were no words, only a fragile note of surrender.

"What?" he asked lightly. "Are you trying to say you're sorry?"

With the distinct impression that she was risking some sort of reprimand, Kyoko reached up and laid her fingers on the hand that held her mouth. She didn't try to push it away or pry it off, she only let the pads of her fingertips play along the surface it, tracing the veins in it with a reverence they could both feel. She tilted her head backwards in his grasp, and this time he let her move. She could just barely see his face, upside down above her, but she tried to speak as though she could see him straight on, needing to reach him in a way that mattered. They were garbled, but the words Yes! I'm sorry! were still vaguely comprehensible through his hand.

Kuon laughed softly, the sound rumbling like distant thunder. Kuon's hand slid off of her face and down to her throat. He planted a kiss on her forehead. Then on the top of her head. Then he leaned down to kiss her ear as his hands ran up and down her arms.

"You don't need to be sorry, Kyoko-chan," he said gently.

This had to be a trap. There might as well have been a neon sign saying This is a trap. Sadly, there didn't seem to be any conceivable way to avoid tumbling straight into it. So, straining towards the forgiveness she sensed just beyond her reach, she flung herself headfirst into its maw.

"I don't?" she asked meekly, skin prickling as he continued to stroke her. Her thighs rubbed together as the wet feeling between them became practically unbearable at this point.

"No. It's my own fault. You might not have been speaking my language, but I wasn't speaking yours either."

My ... My language?

"And I want to speak it, Kyoko-chan," he murmured, running his hands slowly up and down her back. "More than that, I want to be fluent in that language."

Touch, she thought, growing more and more nervous with each caress. He said my language is touch. He's going to keep touching me.

"... I ... You don't ... have to do th-that," she whispered. "I-I mean, it's not ... necessary to -"

He laughed. The low, rumbling laugh that demon in the bedroom corner would surely have. She felt like prey, eyes wide open and limbs weighed down in the thrall of sleep paralysis as that demon closed in on her, baring its teeth and claws.

"That's so cute," he chuckled, sitting up. "You think I'm giving you a choice."

Grabbing her by the shoulder, Kuon abruptly rolled her onto her back. Now freed from his bulk pressing her into the mattress, Kyoko inched back, startled by the intensity with which her body responded to being handled this way. Smirking, he snaked on arm underneath her back, wrapping it around her shoulders so she couldn't move her arms or propel herself away from him. His thigh came up and nudged her legs apart. His other hand -

"Uuh!" she cried out as his fingers slid into her at long, long last.

She twisted in his grasp, accomplishing nothing in the process except exacerbating the feeling of being invaded and stretched. She watched him watching her struggle and felt that same hypnotic pull she had in the parking lot. She felt herself going limp as he plied her deftly, those long fingers slick with her arousal within seconds. He worked his wrist with a deliberate slowness that made her want to weep.

"You don't hear a word I say if my hands aren't on you," Kuon said. "You don't believe a word I say if I'm not holding you down when I say it. You can't seem to feel loved by me unless you have my fingers inside of you -"

Kyoko was hard-pressed to reject what he said, having come to this same humiliating conclusion on her own just ten minutes ago when he had pinned her to his couch. But hearing it verbalized, hearing him say it out loud with such ruthless certainty, spurred her into reflexive denial.

"That's not - ! I-I don't - !" she gasped, bringing her hands up to push half-heartedly at his chest.

His fingers took up a new motion, curling a c-shape upwards against a spot he had intentionally avoided until now.

"You don't what?"

Kuon watched with a grin as her mouth fell open. No answer came out, only another jagged wail as she shut her eyes and gave herself up to the feeling. The sight was mesmerizing, so much so that he couldn't help but marvel at her layers, her seemingly endless multitudes. He had watched her take so many forms: devoted sweetheart, wounded dove, icy bitch, demonic tormentor, enraged shrew, demanding siren ...

And now this helpless, wanton plaything in his arms, begging him to do unspeakable things to her.

The form she couldn't hide from him anymore, no matter how much she still tried.

"Go ahead. Deny it," he dared her, relentlessly stroking all the while. "Lie to my face when I have the proof right here in my hand."

Her hips circled against his hand, all the answer he needed. Kuon pulled his fingers free of her body's tight grip, making her whimper. Then she felt the pads of his fingers against her clit, rubbing insistently. She continued to fidget and shake in his grasp, but nothing she did could shake him.

"You think I would do this with just anyone? You think I'd do this," he snarled, stroking her faster and harder until she was writhing, "with a goddamn fan? Answer me."

She shook her head desperately. "N-No! No, Kuon!"

"No what? Say the words."

"You wouldn't do that!" Kyoko sobbed. "I'm sorry, Kuon! I'm so-!"

He felt her body go stiff in his arms, a familiar sign that he had brought her across the threshold. He looked down to see her toes pointed, her hips straining upwards against his touch as she rode that wave of sensation. He couldn't hold back his pleased laughter as she slumped in his arm, all the resistance and tension wrung out of her.

I can't move, she thought, flooded with the warm, heavy feeling. I can't move, and he's ... Oh, god, what is he doing now? Hey -!

Without warning, he ran his finger gently up and down her slick passage, knowing that she was still very sensitive there. She twisted in his arm and buried her face in his neck, crying out as that light touch set off a flurry of aftershocks. His throat tightened at the picture they made, his sweet Kyoko seeking comfort from the very fiend holding her captive.

"It's not enough, is it?" he lamented. "You want me inside, don't you? Hmm?"

"Yes, yes," she said, "Kuon, please -"

"That's too bad," he said, shaking his head.

He took his arm away, dropping her against the bed. Her head lolled back and forth as she shivered. Kyoko's eyes widened as he closed in her, leaning down until they were nose to nose.

"W-What? Why?"

"I'm not finished touching you yet," he said, relishing the hint of fear he could see in her eyes. "I don't know when I'll ever be finished ..."

Kuon kissed her then, deeper than he had before. As deeply as he had been aching to kiss her when she had first thrust that heavenly body against him. His hands ran greedily over her, touching her every place he could reach without breaking that kiss. Tweaking her nipples, cupping her behind. Rubbing her hips and her thighs, fingers splayed as he tried to get at every last possible inch. Tangling his fingers in her hair, his palm grafted to the shape of her skull. Grinding himself between her legs as he held her this way, rocking her up and down. Grinding until she couldn't bear it because she couldn't cry out with his tongue in her mouth.

I could die, I could die right now, and I don't care, she thought, half-mad with wanting and being so thoroughly and deliriously wanted in return. He seemed to be everywhere at once, devouring her with his hands and his tongue at a pace she found disorienting.

It's still not enough. It'll never be enough, he thought frantically as he moved against her, determined to unravel her, but finding himself coming apart at the seams with every whimper he wrung from her. However taunting and controlled he appeared to her, each passing second he spent exploring her brought him ever closer to raving madness.

Kyoko broke the kiss, turning her head in his grasp. She babbled something nigh incomprehensible, begging him incoherently to keep going, to stop, to get on with it, to put her out of her misery. He laughed, shaking his head.

"Amazing. You really had me fooled!" he rasped against her throat, beginning to sound a bit unhinged. "The last four days, I was just dirt beneath your feet. I wasn't fit to speak so much as a word to you."

He began to retreat, kissing his way down to her breasts and her belly.

"Now you're the one who can't speak," he said with a smile she could feel against her skin.

She squirmed as he fondled and sucked and bit her along the way, all the while chuckling deep in his throat at the desperate sounds coming out of her mouth. How much more of this did he expect her to take without going insane? Could foreplay double as torture? Could torture be foreplay? Even in her dreams, she never would have thought such things were possible, but Kuon seemed determined to prove otherwise.

"Please, Kuon," she moaned. "Will you please just - ?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Kuon - !"

"Hush. I'm not going to let you rush me. I haven't even tasted you yet."

Confused and breathless, Kyoko's mind failed to catch his meaning. His tongue had just been in her mouth, up and down her neck, swirling around her nipples, but he hadn't tasted her? What on earth did that mean? What else was there for him to ... ?

Wait. Oh, god, WAIT.

His tongue was running along her belly button when his intended destination finally dawned on her. Her ears and face began to burn as she pictured the scenario Kuon was hurtling towards. Gasping, Kyoko put both hands between her legs, covering herself with the implicit knowledge that she would go utterly and irrevocably to pieces if she let him do that to her.

Kuon watched her do this placidly, smirking as though he were also aware of this. Then, making sure to catch her eye as he did so, he leaned back down and began pressing kisses to her fingers as if there was nothing at all in his way. The weak, dizzy feeling in the parking lot was nothing compared to the thrall she was fighting against now.

"P-Please. Please, just -"

He took one of her knuckles between his teeth, gnawing on it playfully as he stared up at her from under his brows.

"Y-You've made your point, Kuon!" she whined.

Kuon's eyes narrowed to emerald slits. She hadn't explicitly impeded him until now, but she wasn't telling him to stop altogether. There was something she wanted him to do, but she wouldn't spell it out for him.

It seemed unfair to call upon the journal at a time like this, but he found himself thinking back to the passage he had read. The doctor had bound her prior to the "examination". He had tied her wrists and ankles. Didn't that imply some form of resistance on her part? Resistance he was obliged to overcome?

He glanced at his discarded belt lying unnoticed next to her.

"I'll tell you when I've made my point," he said imperiously, sitting up on his hands and knees.

Making sure to reach towards the buckle near her head so she could clearly see him doing it, Kuon wrapped his fingers around the belt. Her head turned, eyes widening. She chewed on her lower lip, the habitual gesture of worry now an undeniable expression of unsatiated need.

Oh?

She looked up at him. Apprehensive, but ... hopeful?

I think we've got something here.

"Are you going to move your hands? Or do I have to tie them together?"

There is was again. That same guilty, furtive face she had made before, when he had threatened to tie her down to prove his commitment. Kuon had meant that in a far more metaphorical sense, but ...

That was when he saw it. A worshipful, almost indecent look that made every single hair stand on end. It told him everything he needed to know: that tying her hands together was exactly what she wanted him to do, maybe even needed him to do, whether she could say it out loud or not. That his harsh words and rough handling were the stuff of her very dreams.

Kyoko kept her hands right where they were, blocking his path, all the while her eyes begging him to do what needed to be done. Then, seeming to sense the question poised on the tip of his tongue, she squeezed her eyes shut and nodded.

The message was clear. This was power she was placing in his hands. Primal and unsettling power.

This was how she wanted him to prove it to her.

"I suppose it can't be helped then," he said, sitting up. "Hold out your hands. Hold them together."

A pause.

Then Kyoko lifted her shaking hands and held them out to him, wrist to wrist. All the air seemed to leave his lungs at once.

The magnitude of this gesture, the sheer impact of the trust she was bestowing on him was moving in a way that he had never felt before, had never even thought possible. To the naked eye she was simply holding out her hands, but she might as well have been giving him the keys to a sunken kingdom, the blueprints to a subterranean landscape rife with lore and treasures untold.

The stakes, already sky-high, had just raised astronomically.

Love languages are a real thing, by the way! There's a couple of books about them you can check out. Really fascinating stuff.

Sorry this chapter took so long. I had to cut it in half (shocking, I know), and then I had to cut a ton out because it just didn't belong here, and it was just a mess. I hope you guys like this. No promises obviously, but I feel like the next chapter should be out faster since it's mostly written already.

Till next time!