Raised

Chapter Fourteen

Kurama lay on the bed as the sun had crowned upon the Earth, shining in through the window. It glistened off of all the exposed, perspiration dampened skin. Normally Piper wouldn't have minded the view in the least. His form was a new piece of art for her to familiarize herself with so that you could memorize it. Or it could have been if she wasn't planning on leaving - or so Piper had to remind herself. Either way it was something she should have been able to appreciate more than than she currently did. The reason Piper wasn't so enthused about watching as the sun traveled along the planes of his new body was because of the, honestly, exhausting morning.

What had started out as a mission to offer him relief so that he didn't have to feel like he needed to get out of bed hours before his alarm went off turned into an explosion. When she had told him you were recovered enough to bring him such release from the built up tension, she had thought maybe once or twice would do before he could rejoin her in a deep sleep. Piper was wrong; he had made her estimate seem like a fool's hope. After the third time she had gotten about twenty and some odd minutes of rest before waking up to his desire pressing into her ass once more. Damn anyone who could sleep when there was someone insistent trying to slip past the backside of their thighs because she could not. After that, she'd given up trying to control the situation.

From that point on he'd been insufferable. Some people might have called it attentive and thorough, possibly thoughtful. Seeing as Piper had already been having a hard time walking just a few days ago, he hadn't helped at all. She was pretty sure he'd set you back a few days actually. If from nothing else than all the sore muscles that she hadn't got to stretch for five hundred years. She might not have been a blushing maiden anymore but telling her body that after 500 years of abstinence in the deep sleep was another matter entirely.

Achingly Piper stretched as she sat on the edge of the bed. As though the world was going to conspire against her once more, she looked back to make sure that he was still asleep. His face looked completely at peace. An irrational urge to smack him with a pillow once again rose up but she forced it back down. The brunette knew it wasn't her problem that he kept rising to the challenge, that it was all on him and the unending desire he kept pulling up from that miracle well of his but she didn't like seeing him in discomfort. Of course, she knew she was going to have to temper that soon but everything between then and now Piper wanted to make sure wasn't left as guilt on her conscious.

Seriously though, how was it possible that humans had that much semen? He'd never seemed to have that much pent up in him when he'd been a Fox Spirit and that was supposed to be the more virile between the two. But that might have been because he'd never gone a week without sex when she'd been awake, much less five hundred years. Still, he had a new body so there was no way that it should have been able to build up. Besides, wouldn't that have made him explode if it was possible?

As the millennia old medium popped the rest of the kinks out of her upper body she stood up. Feeling herself on her own legs made her almost regret telling him that she was well enough for the excursion. It had been true for what she originally projected but it felt like she had used up just about all of the leeway with her health that had been made. Though she knew that wasn't really true - it was just that she was exhausted. Mentally and physically...mostly physically. Piper could feel some of her muscles twitching in exhaustion even as she made her way through the bedroom and then the mainroom. She went into the bathroom, doing the normal washing maintenance that she did every day now. Only this time the brunette used the mouthwash and toothbrush over and over again until there wasn't a trace of him left in her mouth and she had a much more thorough scrubbing down below.

Piper completely stilled, eyes narrowing, as she heard Kurama get off the bed. After taking a deep breath she turned around and moved to the doorway, leaning against the opening and staring at him with a blank stare. He did take a little bit longer than she expected but that was explained when she saw that he pulled on a pair of pants and a thin shirt.

"I suppose it is a good thing you decided to take a holiday from work," Piper spoke out in a dry tone. "You got less sleep than normal."

There was a neutral, almost challenging expression on his face as he walked through the room. She watched him with narrowed eyes as she debated if she wanted to go sit down or not. After a moment of watching him get some fresh juice, Piper decided that it was in her best interest to sit down in the chair at the table. She leaned tiredly against the table before finally laying out on the surface, face down in submission to the fact that there was no way to pretend you wasn't tired.

Piper slapped away Kurama's hand when he rested them on her shoulders, kissing the top of her wet head. He chuckled under his breath as he took the seat across from the irritated woman. She peered up at him with a heated gaze, just barely rising her head up to do that before she lowered it once more. He sat with one leg crossed over the other as he continued to sip on the juice he'd brought back from the fridge. It was that kind of look mixed with unwavering confidence that really wanted to make Piper bang her head. She should have known better.

The whole week leading up to last night, or rather this morning, had been a trap and she'd played right into it.

"There are profanities that I would throw at you if I was not too…"

She trailed off as you tried to figure out how to describe what she was feeling. Piper apparently had enough energy to talk to him, but she just didn't have that 'oomph' to make the curses stick.

"Satisfied?" Kurama supplied calmly.

Piper lifted her head up to rest her chin on the table just to glare at him. There wasn't much force behind the glare because honestly, she was more disappointed in herself than she was angry at him. Piper should have known he'd been doing something tricksy. Him purposefully getting up out of bed to elevate the levels of exhaustion to the point where she'd notice had just been a lure. She'd fallen into his trap for multiple rounds of coitus.

The disgruntled figure tilted her chin back down as she let out a deep sigh, turning her head so that her cheek was against the table. Her posture wasn't healthy in the least for Her spine but it felt the better of the two options between that and going back to a very soiled bed. Then again there was always that sofa not too far away. It looked comfortable. Though she had that little prickle in the back of her mind that let her know that Kurama wasn't done in the least. It was like an itch that just couldn't be scratched. Going to lay down on the couch seemed like an invitation even to her. And she was not inviting him into something he'd already tricked her into once damn it. Piper was trying to put distance between them and she'd already messed that up. Multiple time.

"Five hundred years is a long time. You should have gotten yourself a whore when you desired a release."

Piper's tone was dry and honest. As weird and almost sick as the idea was, she had to admit that she probably wouldn't mind too much in the long wrong. Especially since she was supposed to be putting some space between them. Instead if almost felt like to her that she was dragging him along or settling into the life he wanted her to live with him. Piper wanted to go back to Demon World and...and...well she wasn't sure but damn it she wasn't ready to live like a normal human yet. Maybe in five hundred years but if he persisted with this whole human thing of his, then he wouldn't be around to see her getting ready for that transition. He'd be nothing but a pile of bones and a spirit somewhere in that damned Spirit World. And now she really was feeling depressed. Damn it. There was no winning.

Kurama shifted in his seat, his hand foot brushing up against her knee to get her attention. He wasn't even trying to be subtle about it at this point. The look in his eyes as she raised her head up was completely serious, as though she had just offended him in every way. Like the people who had tried to steal from him in the past. It didn't burn with hatred so much as it was a look that told someone he lacked in mercy.

"That thought will never cross your mind again. Do you understand?"

The medium let out a long breath as she blinked, staring at him with a lack of anything exuberant. There were so many things that she felt about last night, not to mention the entire time she'd met back up with him. Disappointed and frustrated at herself as well as maybe more than a little irritated at Kurama. Then there was the whole fact that he might have also been right about the fact that she was satisfied - and she would never say that aloud because he already knew that.

"I am not saying that you should put yourself in a space of unreasonable vulnerability, just that you should not wait five hundred years to have sex. I have have never expected that of you."

Her words did nothing to lessen the look on his face. If anything she made it worse. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Really, she must have been on a spree with pressing all of the sore subjects he had. First she'd found out that he really didn't like the fact that she was going to return to Yomi in Demon World. And now he was not pleased that she'd given him permission to actually see to his own needs.

As Piper slowly lifted her head back up, Kuronue's pendant dragged on the table. For a moment Piper felt like Kurama was going to reach out and take it off her neck. She'd almost held her breath waiting for such a thing, though it had really only been a hitch in her breathing as she stared at him. Kurama was not pleased in the least. And that probably stemmed from the fact that the topic she had moved onto was not one he wanted brought back up. While he had thousands of years of wisdom and experience on his side, at his core he was still rooted in the principals of his species. Which, funnily enough, should have lessened considering he was no longer of the same species...well, not entirely. If anything, from what Piper could tell so far, he seemed to have clung to his core foundations even tighter than she remembered.

"No," he simply said as he stared at the woman before him.

Foxes, by large, were monogamous; males particularly. Males stayed with the same female until they died of natural causes or were killed - that was about the only time that the female took a new mate. And while that could technically apply to the situation Piper had a feeling Kurama wasn't about to see it that way no matter how she explained her side of the story.

"Kurama, you are human now. By our very being, humans are not as monogamous."

Every single hair on the back of Piper's neck stood on end. The implications of her sentence was not lost; though she honestly hadn't meant for them to be as prominent as it came out. The whole situation with how Kurama had found you with Yomi was quickly trudged up and mixed into the meaning of her words. She planned on returning to Yomi and though Piper had no intention to engage in a relationship with him, she had never verbally ruled it out either. Nor was she going to as it was foolish to deny possibilities before everything was taken into account.

Piper could see him taking in her words in that sort of reflective way that made him such a good strategist. The fact that she was doing the same in reverse notwithstanding. Kurama leaned forward, his hands folded as he stared directly at his companion. She already knew that whatever came out of his mouth next was not going to be a pleasant thing. The plants around him already confirmed those suspicions, they seemed to shift as his energy leaked out in all directions. Danger - everything around could probably sense that. His body flickered in his seat once before he kept himself from turning, as though to remind her just who she was truly dealing with. Like she could forget.

"If he so much as touches you, I will personally see to it that whatever punishment Koenma could come up with for the darkest of souls looks like a restful respite to him."