Lemon Warning


This is supposed to be a lime chapter; however THIS is the 'clean' version of the chapter, for those who don't care for the lime. If you want to read the lime, it isn't posted here. according to their TOS, will not allow the posting of X (Adult) Rated Materials, so if you want to read the lime/lemon, see MY BIO ON MY AUTHOR PAGE. There is a link to my fanfics on mediaminer, where the lemons are posted.


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Chapter 47

Merging Souls


Sierra stepped out of the shower and heaved a long sigh. Stepping over to the sink, she wiped the condensation off the mirror and frowned at her reflection. She hadn't told Toga that what he'd said scared her. She knew him, and she trusted him. Still the ritual he'd so eloquently described to her was daunting, and she had to admit that it frightened her. In the end, though, if the result was a forever with him . . . . She managed a tiny smile. 'Forever with Toga . . . .'

Toga said that he wasn't sure yet where she'd have to be marked. He said that it varied from female to female, and that he hadn't looked for the spot before.

She wrapped a thick cream-colored towel around herself and tucked in the end as she grabbed another towel for her hair. 'Do you really think he'll be able to do it? He's Toga . . . he couldn't even tell you that he didn't want to kiss Kari, remember? What makes you think he'll be able to hurt you, even if it would save you?'

Sierra made a face as she pulled her watch off the counter. It was nearly eleven. She set the timepiece down again and opened the bathroom door, shivering slightly when the blast of cooler, drier air hit her skin.

Toga was in the living room staring out the glass doors at the ocean. If he heard her approach, he didn't acknowledge it. Standing with his back to her and his hands stuffed into his pockets, he still seemed concerned, apprehensive.

"Do we have to do that right away?" she asked softly, deciding that there was no sense in beating around the bush with it. She knew what caused his preoccupation. Toga wasn't going to relax as long as he was thinking about the marking, and his anxiety was substantial enough to feel.

"No," Toga remarked with a quiet sigh. "But . . . eventually . . . ."

Sierra shrugged as she squeezed the ends of her hair in the fluffy towel. "Maybe there's some other option that you haven't thought of yet. Don't worry. We're on our honeymoon, remember?"

He sighed and turned his head to shoot her the bashful, lopsided grin that never failed to make her heart flop over in her chest. "Yeah . . . we are."

"Let me go dry my hair."

"There's nothing wrong with your hair," he remarked.

"It's wet, and . . . ."

"Sierra."

She swallowed hard, marveling at the way his eyes darkened. The small flames that gamboled in the fireplace cast a warm glow on his face, the planes and angles etched in a deep relief in the darkness of the night. He reached for her hand, brought her knuckles to his lips. A surge of heat slammed through her body as his concealment faded away. "T-Toga?"

"Can you see me?"

She nodded.

"I thought so. Most of the time youkai can conceal themselves better than hanyous. Once you've seen a hanyou in true form, you'll probably always see them that way. Aunt Gome can see through the concealments, but she's also the strongest miko around."

"You know, Toga, as much as I like your family, I'd rather not talk about them."

He blinked in surprise, as though he didn't realize what he had been talking about just before he chuckled. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

Sierra bit her bottom lip, unable to look away as Toga stared into her eyes. The dark blue streaks on his face seemed more savage, more startling, and when his lips parted, his fangs glowed in the half-light. "Mine," he muttered as he pulled her to him.

The influx of sensation shocked her as Toga's mouth slashed down over hers in a kiss full of need, of barely restrained desire. After the months of forced separation, the deluge of emotion was heady, welcome, necessary. Sierra didn't fight as he held her tighter, closer, nearer.

He murmured against her lips, things she didn't understand. In the torrent of rising sentiment, in the engulfing sense of wonder and awe, she let him draw her in. He stood like a buffer against the well of obsession that licked at her, tried to consume her, and she reveled in the shelter he offered, the protection from the storm of her own wanton emotions. She felt the current of his awakening need, the undertones that she heard and knew but didn't understand. 'Closer . . . just a little closer . . . .'

He growled in response to her unvoiced entreaty. She answered him without a word. Drawing herself up on her toes, pressing her body to his as her temperature spiraled higher, she wanted to melt into him. His lips crushed hers, his tongue flicking at her until she opened to him. He took what she offered, gave back to her what she needed, commanded her senses in a gentle tug of war. Lost to the deluge of convoluted emotion, the undulating riot of craving and inevitability collided, leaving Sierra weak, breathless, bemused.

Passion welled and flowed, hummed in the air with an electrical current, a magnetism that pulled her body toward his as the lure of his flesh drew her trembling hands. Clutching his shirt in her fists, she fought back the dizziness he inspired in her. Tormenting memories of the last time they'd touched like this goaded her, drove her as she fumbled with buttons that weren't made for shaking fingers. She finally compromised by tugging the shirt out of his pants and pushed it up, dragging it over his head as he relinquished his hold on her long enough to help her with her task.

His flesh burned under her touch, conflagrant skin rippling with his muscles as he tasted her. Tongue flicking over her lips as she shuddered in his arms, he caught her as her knees gave way. Vaguely it registered in her befuddled mind that he had picked her up and was carrying her somewhere. It didn't matter to her, so long as he didn't break the kiss . . . .

But he did break the kiss as he started up the stairs. Sierra let her head fall against his shoulder- against his scarred flesh; the uncomfortable reminder of how close she'd come to losing him forever. She closed her eyes as he held carried her. "I could walk," she told him, her voice sounding foreign to her ears.

"No . . . I promised I'd take care of you, didn't I?"

She laughed as she relaxed against him, fingers idly toying with his hair. The house was silent, still, comforting. Toga didn't set her down until he reached the huge bed in the master suite. Letting her legs drop on the cotton comforter, he tilted her chin with his left hand as his right arm crushed her against his chest. Bathed in the darkness, the misty blue shadows of the full moon's light filtered through the wall of windows. He stared at her, managed a tender half-smile, promised her an eternity, would pledge her the world if she asked for it.

"I love you," she whispered as her unsteady fingers traced his lips.

He closed his eyes as a shiver raced through him. His body shuddered under her touch, and whether the response was triggered by her words or the feathering brush of her fingertips, she didn't know. She cupped his cheeks in her hands as she rose up higher on her knees to press her lips against his. His kiss was laced with unrestrained desire, unrequited need that wrung a moan from the depths of her soul as a deluge of feel and tactile emotion rifled through her. Weak and clinging, she held onto him, afraid to let go as sensation fed passion, as desperation swelled, spiraling higher and thicker, deeper, darker, sparkling like the ocean in the moonlight.

The towel that separated their skin seemed to melt away. With a gasp as the scorch of his flesh met hers, Sierra's head fell back. Toga's lips descended on her throat as her fingers dropped to his shoulders, dug in as her mind spun away. His heart beat against her chest, an unsteady rhythm that was impossible to define. The flow of heat, the burn of lethargy washed with a heady sense of inebriation as she felt his body shudder against hers.

Sharp fangs whispered against delicate skin to feed an incipient ache that burgeoned inside her. Rising fast with the unsteady cadence of his heart, a need so strong, so pervasive, so consuming that it left her weak, left her clinging and aching, spellbound in a realm where touch and feel were the only things that mattered. The brush of quaking fingers, the balm of breath fanning her skin, the scorching heat of bodies all melded together in delicious sensation, in comprehensible emotion that threatened to sweep her away.

A tempestuous fervor built, escalated in a heavy wave as Toga goaded her, invaded her mind with entreaties murmured so softly that she couldn't make sense of them. Barely contained muscles twitched and strained against her, his body hard against hers as he struggled to repress the insistent need, the will to claim conflicting with the desire to protect. She spurred him on, dragging on his shoulders as her body demanded. She reined him in with her sighs, with her whimpers.

She felt as though she were coming undone, as though her body was reaching for his. He deliberately ignored her silent cries, tortured her with his proximity while feeding the fire that burned inside her. Her skin blazed against his, an ache that intensified as she fought to speak, to tell him that she needed him. Her voice didn't work, her words wouldn't form, the incoherence that surrounded her brain in a merciless blanket of fog transcended the abilities of her physical body.

He leaned toward her, lowered her gently to the bed, mouth trailing over skin in a conflagrant combustion of heat and moisture. Teasing a path down her collarbone, along the rise of her breast, a low rumble that seemed to issue from somewhere deep inside broke the quiet of the room. It soothed and excited Sierra at the same time. Flicking his tongue over the aching rise of her breast just before his mouth closed over her, Toga growled as Sierra gasped, as her hands sank into the thickness of his hair, holding him in place as he ravaged her senses with a gentle viciousness, a guttural burn.

The nerves in her body wound tighter and tighter, drawn rigid like a wire ready to snap. His constant attention only served to worsen the rampant ache that wound around her and left her breathless, clinging. Too much sensation, too strong emotions fed on one another like a rising spire in the turgid air. A gasp, a sigh, a moan in the dark became a pulsing thing, a rampant swelling of sound and susceptibility.

Incoherent words spilled from her lips like water, like rain in the driest heat of summer. Broken entreaties surged with the current of need and want, conflicted in her grasp as she pulled and pushed on him. Unsure if she wanted him to continue or to stop, the disagreement between what she felt and the absolute torment he inflicted on her rapidly deteriorating control was wicked. He goaded her to the very limits of her jurisdiction then he pushed her further into a realm where time and space fell away, into a place where the only thing that mattered was Toga, was the pattern of his beating heart, was the sound of his ragged breathing.

She spoke to him with her body, dragging him closer as his teeth grazed over her tremulous flesh. His hands closed over her breasts as he foraged a path along the hollows of her body, his unspoken promises hanging in the dark like an incandescent beam, the illumination that led to him. He glowed in the waning light, his eyes bright like flaming jewels as she fought to stare at him even as her eyelids drifted closed again. Giving herself up to the vast emotion that surged around her, she felt his love- a palpable thing, an entity that sheltered her as Toga gently demanded her heart, her soul, her body. She couldn't remember a time when he wasn't there, a time when he wasn't whispering in her mind. As though she'd known him forever, his soul spoke to hers, claimed her with a benign brutality, a totality that left her soaring even as the ache inside her deepened.

"Sierra . . . ."

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The bed trembled as he moved away, and she couldn't stave back the whimper of protest as he stood up. Forcing her heavy eyelids open was another task, and when she did manage, the sight of Toga, standing at the foot of the bed with his pants undone but still up as he stared at her dissolved the tattered remnants of her waning control.

Unable to resist the lure of him, she sat up slowly, dragged toward him by a force she didn't fully recognize. Words replayed in her head, cycling like a scratched record: 'Touch him . . . .' The need to know the feel of him was impossible to ignore. His skin shined with a blue aura in the moonlight, the shadows and planes of his body pulled her in, and he gasped when she leaned up, her hands on his chest as she pressed against him, as her lips sought out his once more.

He crushed her to him again, his kiss brutal and wholly primitive as the remaining semblance of his authority slipped away. His hands on her hips pulled her closer, and she whimpered at the contact. The fabric of his pants chafed her, inflamed her, even as the heat of him slammed straight through her body to her brain. The shockwaves ripped through her, exploding somewhere deep inside her as the ache welled deeper, throbbed in time with his thundering heart.

Her hands slipped down his chest, cascaded along the ripples of skin that lurched under her fingertips until they caught on the offending slacks. If he realized what she was doing, he didn't show it. She hooked his waistband and pushed down, letting go only when the pants slipped past his hips, allowing him to step out of them without breaking the contact of their bodies. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she moaned as he leaned toward her, his weight offsetting hers as they fell back in a tangle of limbs and heat, a primitive configuration of flesh against flesh.

She touched him, impatiently indulged the desire to learn the paths of him as he uttered a sound, almost a whine. She kissed the angry scars on his shoulder, his chest, tried to soothe the brutal reminders away as he mumbled things that she didn't comprehend, as his hands stroked her back, as he nuzzled her neck. He lingered on the fluttering pulse in her throat, his quaking body giving away the struggle inside him: the will to give her the time she wanted fighting against the need to claim her.

He compromised in the end, leaning back as he nudged her legs apart with his knee. Rising up on his elbows, he stared down at her, the raw emotion in his expression enough to give her pause. She reached out with trembling fingers, stroked his cheeks as he closed his eyes, as though her touch was enough to humble him. That thought unsettled her, and she realized with a shaky smile that she didn't want him to be broken, didn't want to bend him to her will. A being such as Toga wasn't to be governed by the whims of humanity, and she rose up, kissed him, surrendered to him.

Her body felt like it was breaking apart, as though she wanted to merge with him, to exist as a singular extension of him. "Sierra . . . I love you," he whispered, stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs as he stared down at her, eyes glowing golden, a look of complete reverence on his face.

She tried to smile, tried to see through the hazy fog that consumed her mind. In the end, she pulled him down, kissed him gently, tenderly, kissed him with the emotion that she couldn't voice, and he understood.

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It took a long time for the haze engulfing her mind to fade away. She was cradled against Toga's side with her head on his shoulder, and she opened her eyes as a smile surfaced on her face.

Stroking her shoulder, he pulled her a little closer and sighed.

"What are you thinking?" she asked in a whisper, unwilling to disturb the quiet of the room.

He sighed again, but this one sounded almost disgusted. "I don't think you want to know," he confessed.

She rolled over and leaned on her elbows. "Oh?"

He grinned. "I was just thinking," he acknowledged as his smile turned distinctly sheepish, "that we should have done that sooner."

Sierra blinked as she stared at him, unsure whether she ought to laugh or chastise him. In the end, she groaned and flopped back down. His chuckles were infectious, and she giggled despite herself as he drew her close again. She rubbed her foot along his leg and craned her neck to stare at him. "You're not tired already, are you?"

Toga stared at her for a moment. "Me?"

She nodded as she wiggled around so she could kiss him.

He chuckled again. "I'm youkai, Sierra. Youkai don't need sleep."

She smiled as her lips brushed over his. "Oh, really?"

Her smile faded into a sigh as he took control of the kiss. "Well . . . not much."

'Good,' she thought as Toga nibbled at her lower lip. 'Really, really good . . . .'


A/N:


Final Thought from Toga:

Mine.


Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Defiance): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

Sue