Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin et al is owned by Watsuki Nobuhiro. I'm just a Sessha follower that dreams…


Across the Hallway


A/N: Lemon Alert! Lemon Alert! Not to mention WAFF... Omigod, is it the last chapter already? I know i only have a handful of readers out there, but I would really appreciate a written review. But even then, I really enjoyed this last part... Fanfiction is a stressful, but great hobby! so...

Don't forget to R&R! :)

PS. Rated--- DEFINITELY. Steamingly, perhaps. I hope my lemon gave justice to all K/K fans out there.

PPS. An email would do just as well as a review, thanks! :)


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Chapter 12

Together at Last

Kenshin held a simple bouquet of yellow and pink carnations behind his back, having stopped at a 24 hour flower shop before coming home. He was once again in front of the door across from his apartment, a familiar door holding that which was dear to him. He pushed on the doorbell once more. He was praying hard that she wasn't asleep yet or else all his hard work would go to waste. Then again, it was nearing midnight, and he knew she was an early sleeper. Suddenly, he was rewarded by the soft pad of footsteps coming towards the door, and the quick flash of blue at the peephole.

"Kenshin? It's late! What are you doing out here?" Kaoru said as she opened the door. She really wasn't asleep, but then, she was too upset by what happened in the restaurant earlier that she couldn't, no matter how she tried. I acted like an utter fool! No wonder he doesn't want to sleep with me, I can be a mean bitch sometimes! I really don't know why he puts up with someone like…

Kenshin broke into Kaoru's self deprecating thoughts and asked "May I come in?"

Kaoru nodded and let him in. She was too immersed in her thoughts about her behavior earlier when Kenshin took her hand with his free one. Startled into looking at him, she saw caring and something else lurking in his eyes, making them purple shimmering gold.

"To answer your question when you opened the door, do you honestly think I would let tonight pass without making it up to you? I'm sorry--- and these are for you." Kenshin held out the bouquet he was hiding.

Kaoru gasped. "Carnations! How did you know I like them?"

Kenshin just smiled tenderly at her.

"Oh Kenshin, thank you so much, they're really nice… but… but… I don't…"

Kenshin placed a finger on her lips and the apology she would have said was silenced. " Let's just say our first lover's spat is over, okay?"

Kaoru mutely nodded, her eyes as wide as saucers. Lover's spat? He considers me his lover? But we barely…

"Of course, we really have to do something about the lover part…" He closed the distance between them and kissed her, really kissed her, holding nothing back. His tongue caressed and tasted her as he crushed his lips to her and his hands held her against the whole length of him.

Kaoru was stunned at first and then she melted. The carnations fell to the floor, neglected, as she raised her hands to tangle in his hair, deepening the kiss. This was what she had been waiting for, the chemistry that she felt the first time he kissed her, and knew deep inside that tonight, there was no turning back for either of them. So she closed her eyes and kissed him back with all the stored up passion she felt in three weeks, willingly giving all her inexperienced, timid self up to the feelings he was invoking in her.

Kenshin felt her legs give way, and in his thoughts he smiled wolfishly. I still got it! He held her tighter and then decided they would be better off in a bed so without breaking the kiss, he carried her in his arms and started toward the first door he could find. He ended up going to the bathroom and nearly tripped over the tub in the dark. Kaoru giggled, and hid her face in the crook of his neck. "So you think this is funny, huh, woman! Arrrrr" Kenshin mockingly growled and nipped her ear. Kaoru giggled some more and squealed in reply as she felt his tongue tracing the contours of her ear "Bedroom is next door on the right! Hurry Kenshin!!!"

"As you command, my lady!" Kenshin moved his mouth to her jawline and walked towards where she directed, still biting and teasing as she muzzled his neck, opening a shoji leading to a dimly lit bedroom. He laid her gently on the bed, positioned himself on his hands and knees above her and looked deeply into those blue eyes he loved so much. Slowly, Kaoru's giggles quieted as she looked up at him, serious now.

"Before we go on, I want to tell you something, so that you won't think it was done in the heat of the moment or anything. I love you, Kaoru. I fell for you the minute you knocked me out with your bokken here in this very house. And if you think that we shouldn't be doing this now, I'll stop and give you time to tell me when, even if it kills me."

Kaoru's heart sang with joy. He loves me!!! He loves me!!! Baka Kaoru for thinking he didn't! Slowly, she felt her eyes fill slowly with tears.

"Hey, don't cry, koishii, you know I don't like seeing you cry…" Kenshin kissed her tears away and brushed his lips lightly against hers. "You don't have to tell me that you love me too, just being here with you is enough…" More butterfly kisses. His hand snaked up to her ribs and stroked, the simple caress sending shots of pleasure down Kaoru's body.

"Ah—I'm… crying because ooooh that tickles… I'm--- Ken! So happy!" Kaoru started kissing him back, shifting her hands in his hair and dragging him closer to her.

"So I'm guessing that's a yes-we-are-going-through-with-this?" Kenshin pinned Kaoru down on the bed and looked at her damp eyes. Kaoru solemnly nodded, and Kenshin grinned, adding "Good, cause the time I gave you was just about to run out, that it was!" Kaoru scrunched up her nose and gave Kenshin a playful tug on his hair.

"Oww! Hmmm… so you want to play, huh?" Kenshin said and with a mock growl, his mouth pounced on hers. All playfulness was lost as the kiss grew deeper, more passionate. He tugged Kaoru up to a sitting position (he was still in between her legs, though) and removed the robe she was wearing, while she unbuttoned his shirt. He grinned when he saw what she wearing underneath; an oversize nightshirt that looked as if it belonged more to a twelve year old. She held her arms up like a child and he removed that for her too.

Kenshin took in his first sight of what he had only dreamed about. Except that reality was better. She was perfect. Years of hard physical training had molded her body into a firm, toned one, but she still had the softness and fragility of womanhood. His eyes took in the creamy skin, pert breasts, small waist and the small yellow cotton panties. Ah, he thought, those will come off soon enough. It also did not escape his notice that her blush was really up to her toes. His smiling eyes came to rest again upon her face, and found her with her eyes squeezed shut and appealingly pink all over. He chuckled at her modesty, and thanked the gods in his head that although he knew she wasn't a virgin, she obviously wasn't passed around. Taking advantage of the situation, he peeled off all his clothes except his boxers and once again sat cross-legged where he was.

"Kaoru? Honey?"

"What?" Kaoru replied, still not opening her eyes.

"Are you going to open your eyes soon?"

She shook her head vigorously, making her hair swish around her body provocatively. "I'm… I'm… afraid--- I'm going to see disappointment in yours." She said in a rush.

"Oro?!"

"Ah--- Enishi--- old boyfriend-- used to say making love to me was better in the dark because I had a pretty face but with the body of a boy…" Kaoru felt her face being held, and felt Kenshin's breath on her lips as he said—

"Then your ex was more of a baka-idiot than I was because there is nothing remotely boyish about you. You're beautiful, koishii. Like an angel, that you are. My angel." Kenshin suddenly understood why she never gave him a clear signal that she wanted him. She didn't know how! He thanked the Gods again for the idiocy of her first boyfriend, because he wouldn't have met her otherwise. On the other hand, he would pound into the dust whoever else had the guts to say that Kaoru had the body of a boy in the future.

Kaoru finally braved enough muster to open one eye, then the other. She saw warm purple eyes with radiating lines of amber looking at her intently, and to find that he had stripped down to his underwear too. He's made of rope and steel, she thought, he's perfect, just like I thought he would be, looking at the lean muscles that were developed from his past, with all the scars and imperfections. Her curious, wandering eyes finally made it down to his boxers with crystal clear evidence that he wanted her, and she smiled, a woman's knowing smile, glad that she made him feel that way.

"You're so different from me…" Kaoru commented, a little breathlessly, tentatively reaching out and splaying her hand on his chest, where his heart was running a mile a minute.

"I certainly hope so" came Kenshin's husky reply, while he slowly leaned forward to claim her lips in another kiss. No more words were needed as he carefully pushed her back down on the bed, positioning himself on top of her. The kiss grew steadily heated as his hand cupped her breast and he slowly kneaded it. She gasped, arching her back into him. He then broke the kiss and leisurely placed open mouthed kisses following a path going to where his hand was, and finally came to a pebble hard nipple that he suckled tenderly, his tongue laving her over and over again. She mewled her pleasure, and moaned as Kenshin's other hand covered her other breast and did the same thing.

When his mouth finally moved over to the other breast, Kaoru was already panting, her hands growing wild as they sought for a hold in his shoulders, in his head until finally settling on his hair that she started tugging painfully. Her legs started rubbing up and down on Kenshin's thighs restlessly, trying to find a way unconsciously to even bring them closer together. Every move she made was playing havoc on Kenshin's senses, and his mouth and fingers became a little more urgent, more seeking, more demanding, nearly past caring of physical pain in his blinding urgency to give and to take. His hand plunged fast in between them as his lips savaged hers again and ripped her panties off in an almost furious effort to find her most sensitive spot. He swallowed her moans into him as he found the small nub and played it between his fingers. Dampness assaulted his fingers' quest when he slipped them into her moist passage, and as she arched and gave herself up into his clever, clever hands, he knew almost instantaneously when she had reached her first climax.

This time it was no longer fireworks.

It was like a million nuclear explosions going inside her body, and at the same time, a weightless, decadent feeling as Kaoru shuddered and mewled into Kenshin's mouth at the same time she tightened around his touch. Satisfied that he had readied her, Kenshin rode the crest of her peak and drove himself full hilt into her. Startled at the new sensation this caused, Kaoru's deep sapphire eyes and met pure amber staring back. Fascinated, they held each other's stare as their fevered touches and bodies set the pace into a fast, nearly violent joining. As he drove into her again and again, Kenshin prayed that he would hold his orgasm he felt running full tilt into him before Kaoru could. And for once, Buddha was listening. Before long she could no longer control the bright sparks of togetherness he made her feel and cried his name out over and over again. Finally, at long last, he made himself let go of his control and went over the happy proverbial cliff with her, his hoarse cries mingling with her own.

-o-

In the aftermath, Kaoru was tired, spent, and happy spooning in Kenshin's arms, where she belonged at last. She smiled over the differences of the only lovers she ever had in her short life, comparing. Enishi bragged that he could make my body moan, but Kenshin proved that he can make me weep and sing! I would not have believed if last week, someone told me that I would be sleeping with the only person that I would ever love… With happy thoughts in her head, she turned around, grinning at the protective way Kenshin instinctively curled himself around her, one muscular leg trapping both of hers in the full body embrace.

"Kaoru?"

"Mmmm… I thought that you were sleeping. Aren't you tired?"

Kaoru felt the answering smile rather than saw it. She was actually more in tune with him than he thought. She sighed softly, placing her cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat.

"I was, but why sleep when you have the woman you've dreamt off every night in your arms?" Kenshin whispered, still amazed that she had let him love her.

"Really? That's what I thought too…" Kaoru giggled.

Kenshin's eyes widened at this information. Kaoru dreamt of him? Strange… They were more connected than he thought.

"And just in case you were wondering, I love you too."

Kenshin's heart thudded rapidly against her cheek.

"Wha—what did you say?"

Kaoru raised herself on one elbow, making sure he could every nuance of her face.

"I. Love. You. You. The scarred you. The idiot you. The gentle you. The passionate you. Every inch of you. You." She stated simply, and with all her heart.

Battousai saluted his counterpart, for once at peace over the fact that the rurouni won the biggest coup of all. Kaoru and her heart.

Kenshin hugged her to him, saying thank you over and over to Kaoru and a presence he could not see but he felt, for giving him the most precious gift of all.

And best of all, it was given to him from across the hallway.

-o-

The New York Times held a simple announcement in the weddings section, almost unnoticed by all except those who knew. It stated,

"Jaded town detective marries lively school teacher. Kenshin Himura and Kaoru Kamiya tie the knot at 2PM this afternoon, in Central Park. Free drinks at the Saiyuki bar on 12th and Kensington tonight and may the best wager on the upcoming gender of their future child win! Girl against Boy odds are 3:1, FYI. Additional bets welcome, list with the barkeep. Fox lady not included."

Three guesses as to WHO posted that up!

The End.

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A/N: Comedy 'til the end, what can I say? Anyway, Thanks, for all who are silent and kept with me through all the chapters, and BIG thanks and hug to Azuma_ninja, who kept me at it til it was done.

Tell me what you think!

Til next time,
twish