A/N: This was supposed to be a very, veeery short story, like three chapters tops. Wtf happened, lol.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! Sorry if I didn't have time to respond, but classes have just ended and I was in the middle of finals when I posted chapter 4. Anyway, Idk if I made Sasuke too ooc here, but writing his character is hard cause he's even more constipated than canon!Sasuke, and plus there's like a ton of development squished in here (I cannot with fanfics where they take 20 chapters to say hi to each other. I ain't about that you feel me? Excuse me while I dry my tears).
The well-awaited smut is here! Mostly implied but I hope I conveyed their feelings well enough. This chapter was a freaking pain to write, please review :)
P.S. There is a reference to Shippuden!Sasuke if you squint (hint hint: clothing).
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He watches her because he couldn't do it before. He watches her because she might be there, in his castle, reading or walking or taking care of her flowers, and the next moment she might not.
He watches her because she's Sakura, a very layered and unpredictable human being, someone who openly lashes out at him for having her garden ruined, but remains silent when he suggests her personally-arranged bento may poison him.
He watches her because he doesn't quite trust her—or anyone, for that matter, other than the ghosts which haunt him.
He watches her for her own good.
Whether his wife stays in the castle or goes out does not matter in terms of her safety; in the end, he has come to learn this the hard way, though he's tried to avoid it like the plague.
Back at the Geisha-filled locale, while the women commenced their dance, Sakura had inched closer to him in her seat. Close enough to whisper and be heard, but not enough to earn glances from every other person at the table.
He had let her out of his sight after nodding once to her request, something that he hadn't thought much of back then; after all, accompanying her to the restroom would have been a waste of time, mundane, even. It had been only a few minutes of absence, and he hadn't suspected anything from it—he hadn't even seen Nakamura get up from the table to begin with, and that in itself angered him more than it should have—but it was enough for whatever had transpired in the back of the locale to take place.
His wife has gone out of the castle one time only, and that one time was enough to show him the dangers of letting her out of the protective barriers around their home.
This is what makes him oppose to her wishes of going outside, visiting her mother and attending her wedding, and he doesn't quite feel any slice of remorse about his decision.
He knows what he's doing; he knows why he says no and why she takes hopeful glances at him, only to feel disappointed again at his silence; he knows why she keeps trying to talk to him in the days following his birthday celebration, if only to make him change his mind.
He knows all this, but he can't let her go, and that is written in stone inside his brain.
Yet he watches her every move inside the castle instead, and it seems redundant to do so at first, especially considering that he has guards stationed in every possible entrance of the fortress and the castle itself.
However, Sasuke is aware that she's in danger outside the castle's protective fortress as much as she's in danger inside of its walls. The image of her lithe fingers moving his small dagger toward herself is one he can't forget, and probably never will, even if she has assured him that it won't happen again.
So he watches her, even as she catches on to his lingering glances; his way of remaining close and far away at the same time could almost be mistaken for shyness, but it's only a precaution he's willing to take.
He watches her because his arms tingle and prickle every time she looks up at him and offers a small smile.
He watches her because he has had enough wives, and he doesn't wish for any more, so he'd rather watch his current wife as she moves around the castle than find her dead inside their bedroom one day.
Sakura may be confusing, talkative, way too optimistic and fierce, but Sasuke—though not physically proven in any way or form in the course of their quiet marriage—somehow knows that she's also kind, caring, and patient. Her desire to see her family proves it so, in some ways, and the constant reading, added to the care she takes in her garden, only prove it further.
Her smile is kind and her eyes are kinder, and when she talks to him her voice is gentle, soft. It all makes it really hard to let her go out of sight.
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Sakura closes the book slowly and smiles to herself when she puts it back on the shelf. It's the last of the plant section, and she tells herself that she can finally order the clan's healer to teach her more—order because she's not sure he'll let her know on the Uchiha clan's secrets by only asking nicely, though she is technically part of it now.
The sun is directly overhead the castle by now. She estimates she has about five hours before the light hides behind the tall treetops in the horizon, and so she takes her time in walking out of the small library on the fifth floor, walk down the stairs, flight by flight, in order to think about whether she should go ask the healer now.
The castle is quiet, save the workers moving here and there in preparation for lunch and a few cleaning behind every hidden corner. She feels the village outside resembles the inside of the castle, too.
It's a peaceful day.
Seeing as she has nothing else to do, she decides it wouldn't hurt to ask the family's healer now, a man in his fifties, probably, with hair that used to be jet black now grey and pulled back in a low ponytail, eyes wrinkling in the corners and wary of her. She has seen him before, though from far away, every time she goes to tend to her flowers or wander around the other sections of the expansive gardens this place offers.
A maid had disclosed to her who he was not too many months ago, for Sakura had not the slightest idea. It hadn't crossed her mind he was a healer, a physician with knowledge from past ancestors who had dealt with Uchiha all the same for centuries. Sakura really couldn't blame herself; after all, in the three years she has been married to Sasuke, she hasn't seen him come home injured gravely.
A few scratches here and there, but nothing that couldn't be cured on its own.
She had never seen him actually go to someone after his battles; he usually just entered his study or the bathroom. Either he was really good at sneaking into a secret, unheard of basement without her finding out, or he had never really gone to the healer's aid to start with.
This brings her to stop walking down the stairs as she reaches the second floor, mind stopping her from creating any more displaced thoughts. She doesn't even know where the healer lives. She has seen him, yes, but he has been somewhere different in every single instance—next to a door, in front of the forest's entrance, leaning against the wall of the castle, leaning down to pick medicinal herbs for inspection.
She doesn't know where to start looking for him, but she knows, in a distant part of her brain, that Sasuke's office is on the second floor, at the end of the hallway on the left. And she knows Sasuke is still inside, for the castle wouldn't be so quiet if he was out, walking about.
She hesitates as her feet touch the tatami of the second floor, eyes shifting from the hallway on the left side of the wide hall to the staircase that leads to the first floor.
She could always ask someone else for the physician's whereabouts. It shouldn't be something that anyone would dare keep from her. But something tugs at her to move opposite from the stairs, walk around the sharp corner of the hall, and stop.
Soon, she's standing at the beginning of the long hallway. The walls at her sides are devoid of any frames, just simple and beige—and still, though simple at first glance, they are framed with gold, delicate circles and lines at the bottom and at the top, blending with the white ceiling and too easy to miss.
She takes a deep breath and strides forward slowly, slowing down her pace the more she gets closer to the door at the end. It's imposing, tall and wide and grabbing all her attention. The paper of the sliding door is white and thick, not really letting her see much past it as she had hoped.
She wants to turn back around. The more her soundless steps take her closer, the more she wants to step away. It's a loud and uncormfortable conflict inside her mind; a war between wanting to ask her husband and asking someone else.
She tells herself to relax, take a deep breath, and think of it as a test to prove herself. She feels comfortable enough to establish a conversation with him and simply ask, no tricks up her sleeve. Surely, he must be busy, but not busy enough to turn her away with one simple question in mind. After all, it is a quiet, peaceful day.
It's a peaceful day until she has her hand on the space of the inwards handle, ready to push the material of the door to the side and enter, and hears something slamming against what she guesses is a table, the force of the blow making her freeze in the act.
She stops, her hand tensing for a moment too long, eyes wide and mouth parted as two voices behind the door talk in hushed tones.
Sasuke is not alone in his study, it seems, and she drops the hand she had been ready to use, lips pursing together in frustration. She recognises one of the voices as belonging to her husband, but the other one is unknown to her, though it is a bit raspier and higher-pitched than Sasuke's, and a male's.
Sakura has to leave, and she's aware of this, albeit she stays rooted to the floor when the voices escalate and filter through the paper. It might be thick, expensive paper, but it is paper all in all, and she catches the words exchanged for a good two minutes of silence from her end.
"What is the meaning of this," her husband asks—demands would be a better word, she thinks, as she hears the dark tone of his voice become even deadlier, taking the form of something she has never heard before.
"I am in no position to lie, Sasuke. It would be quite troublesome to deal with the repercussions."
"Do not play around with this, Shikamaru. It has been three years since his death."
"It has been three years since his strange disappearance."
There are a few muffled sounds, and then a choked gasp, before Sasuke speaks again. It's spoken lower this time, and Sakura has to bow her head closer to hear the threatening words spill forth.
"My brother died honourably in battle. I was there when it happened, so do not insinuate otherwise."
"But," she hears another gasp, followed by a restrained set of words that make her husband release him from his strong hold, coughs falling from Shikamaru in succession. "Did you see him die? Did you see how he died? Did you ever find the body?"
There's silence after that statement, and Sakura finds it in herself to snap back to her situation, one that shouldn't be transpiring. She turns and walks away silently, careful to not make a sound against the tatami-lined floor, and hears her husband answer right before she's out of earshot. His words make her swallow audibly, finally rounding the corner of the hall and stepping down to the first floor, heart pounding against her chest wildly.
"No."
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Lunch is spent in silence.
Usually, she wouldn't expect anything other than this, for it has been this way since she entered his life. Her husband sits opposite to her at the long table, the distance between them almost unnecessary, though she still manages to catch his every twitch and scowl.
Something is troubling him today, and she feels like an intruder in his home when she's sure of what exactly is bothering his mind, delving into his thoughts with unanswered questions. She had heard the conversation between him and one of his advisors not two hours ago, and all she wants to do now is walk over to him and encase him in her arms in a comforting hug—not because he would ever tell her to do so, but because she sees his every changing expression like never before, written all over his face in waves of anger, frustration, and something else she can't comprehend.
His eyes get lost in different spots of the table from time to time, his mouth barely tries the food laid out before him and, at one point during lunch, she hears him huff and snort through his nose, the sound startling her for a moment before she keeps chewing her food.
The topic of Itachi is always a delicate one with him, as she has come to learn, and so, even though she wants nothing more than to make him forget the insinuation of his brother not being dead at all, she stays silent for the rest of the day.
He doesn't sleep in their bed that night or the few more that come that week.
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Sakura walks through the forest, the same one Sasuke uses to train almost everyday, moving her sandals along the fallen leaves so as to not touch the dirt too much. Even when she takes great care in this, she doesn't find it in herself to care when her small feet get dirty anyway.
She strolls around and through the area, looking at every tree that has slices all over from the thin, sharp weapon her husband uses, and stopping at each one to look more closely.
He has been distant. It has been a week, and all she has seen of her husband has been at lunch and dinner, albeit not even at each and every one of them. Sakura seldom sees him at their bedroom, and the times she does, he never bothers to glance her way.
She hates this; she hates this because one day he was there and the next he was gone from her side; she hates this because they have been working on what they have for half a year now, and he has cut their development from one day to the next.
It shouldn't bother her as much; after all, ever since the start of their marriage, she has given up her hope in developing their feelings. Sasuke seemed to have none for her and none for their arrangement, so she has technically given up a long time ago.
It shouldn't bother her as much, but it does. It does, because she has been working ever since that night not so many months ago; ever since she saw him stop her from ending her life too soon for all the wrong reasons.
So it bothers her that he's shut off what little communication they had established and all the progress in between—especially since she has to remain by his side until the end of her days, so she supposes that talking to him and establishing a sense of trust is only a basic, normal thing to do in their position.
Sakura sighs at the clean cuts along the bark of a tree, takes two steps back, and bumps into a hard chest.
She jumps and recoils quickly, finding it in herself to turn and look up at the face of her husband; but she finds nothing there, just an eerie emptiness, so unlike what she had seen during lunch the week before—the last time she had seen him acting relatively normal.
"Sasuke-kun!" She exclaims, closing her mouth shut when she realises she has almost screamed his name in horror, or surprise, though the difference between them is separated by a thin line.
He only regards her for a few more seconds before he sidesteps her with a small frown pulling down his lips, quietly passing by her and taking out the katana from the obi on his waist.
Sakura glances at the white, open haori, the purple obi around his small waist, and the navy pants, wide and informal for mobility purposes. The wide set of his shoulders stand tense and rigid, and Sakura can almost make out, under the thin, sheer shirt, the muscles shifting as he clenches his fist around the hilt of his trusted weapon.
She stands where he's left her as he gets into a fighting stance. There is no one to fight today—or most days—but he still makes sure to practice his technique every single day. She has seen him train before, only a couple of times, but enough to know he starts by going through all the kata positions, one by one, patiently. It doesn't quite surprise her that—given the recent developments in his life—now all he does is move his sword against the tree barks and through the light breeze, wielding a certain kind of vexation, anger, toward something she knows too well and maybe shouldn't.
The graceful movements she has known him to sort to are gone, replaced now by an uncomfortable set of jerks from his hands, the movements carrying something heavy with them.
She's walking toward him before she can make up her mind about the rash decision.
This Sasuke, the man standing a few feet behind her, is not the Sasuke she knows. His arm moves with frustration—almost desperation—against the trees, small pants coming out of him in rough and inconsistent patterns.
It's not too long before he rids himself of his haori, the thin fabric pooling at his waist, held up by the sash. As Sakura approaches him in slow strides, she takes notice of the thin layer of sweat adorning his back, the defined muscles of his shoulder blades moving along with every quick hand movement.
This Sasuke is bold, fast, angry. Angry at himself and angry at the world, even, and Sakura hates it; hates it as much as she hates how he ignores her presence, or the way he doesn't look at her anymore, or the way she almost misses seeing his unusually spiked hair lurking in the shadows around her.
The moment she touches his forearm from behind, she's greeted with a cold rush of air hitting her cheeks. The first thing she feels is something sharp and cold resting on the side of her neck, and the first thing she sees are his eyes: dark and guarded and full of the many emotions she dislikes seeing on him.
This rage is something she's beginning to despise, much to the pleading screams of her brain to stop, let go, and walk away before it's too late.
She loses her fight the moment she sees the surprise flash across his beautiful, cloudy gaze, his long eyelashes fluttering in a moment of vulnerability.
She stands, hands at her sides and eyes hard, looking up at his own with no semblance of backing down or moving an inch away. It's in his power now to move his sword away, and he does so slowly, as if numb to the situation.
Sakura breathes out and suppresses the urge to scratch at the place where his sword had touched, creating a thin cut, luckily not deep enough to draw blood.
She shouldn't be confronting him like this, just as she shouldn't be touching him so familiarly. However much her brain is telling her to curtly apologise and turn around, her heart beats loudly against her ears and there's nothing she can do other than hear this constant sound, the emotions coursing through her making her hands shake slightly.
She takes one step closer to him.
He doesn't expect this, and he immediately takes one step back—almost unconsciously, like he's afraid of this sudden, uncharacteristic display of courage.
"Sasuke-kun," she murmurs, watching as his jaw locks and his eyes move away from her own—it's a second later that she realises he's pointing in the direction of the castle with his head, his eyes betraying nothing more than the desire for her to leave.
"You should head back," he voices, and the unfamiliar edge to the sound is what makes her narrow her eyes at him, lips pursed and unhappy.
"No."
Sasuke looks at her again, his subdued rage coming forth once again, bubbling up in his chest at her clear and unmistakable answer. The sword hangs loose from his grip, but he doesn't sheath it again.
"No?"
He regains his step then, moving slowly toward her small body, never shifting his eyes away from her bottom-sea green.
"What is it this time?" He asks, finally stopping a few inches away from her, looking down menacingly.
Sakura has never seen him look at her like this, and maybe that's why she answers not a heartbeat later, confidence pooling in her throat and coming out from the depths of her core.
"I was only walking around. If this place exists only for your eyes, that was never in me to know."
"You have been looking at me for the past few minutes, not walking," he says, his bare chest now barely moving up and down with the quiet intakes of breath he's taking, after he finally recuperates from the interrupted training session—a motion she has no time to appreciate. "What is it?"
She had been walking around the forest for reasons she doesn't even begin to comprehend. Maybe she had wanted to see him after all. Maybe, just maybe, she had been hoping he would show up; been hoping to confront him about what plagues her mind day and night. Maybe it's the way he has been so distant lately that had led her into the forest, the same one where he had told her she couldn't go see her mother a few weeks ago, looking for some answers. But her husband is here now, standing a few inches away from her, flesh and bone and real.
She lets out the words before she can retract them. It's too late for either of them, she misses him and she misses them—or what little they had, really—and she wants this issue about his brother resolved and done with.
"I overheard your conversation with your advisor a week ago," she watches him closely for any reaction with fire in her veins despite the little waver in her voice. "My father died in the same battle as Uchiha Itachi; knowing him, I am certain he made sure to protect his superior until his very last breath."
If they weren't standing so close, she would have missed the way his grip tightens on the katana.
"Haruno Kizashi was his name, though you probably don't remember, but many came by my house describing his heroic death; the way he defended your brother until he could not anymore," she adds. "Therefore, I believe any chances of him being alive are slim."
"Slim, but not impossible."
The prompt response makes her take a small step back, mouth agape until she processes his words.
"But very unlikely," she retorts, taking a deep breath through her pert nose. "I am merely trying to understand. You are a leader to this country, a force to be reckoned with, someone who is well respected amongst his people. Tell me, did the gathering of Daimyō a few days ago not do this for you? Why spend your time on this matter?"
Sakura's breath hitches in her throat when Sasuke deepens his frown, looking down at her with a certain kind of restraint, like he wants to tell her something but holds it back. She can see a twitch on his left temple forming, probably product of his teeth grinding together.
Sakura has never spent this much time and effort talking to him. Then again, she's never imagined it would go like this, with Sasuke fuming and ready to pounce on her, and with Sakura trying to push him to his limits if only to get some more answers.
She contemplates placing one of her hands on his chest to calm him down, but decides against it quickly; she has seen what touching him unexpectedly does to him. So she only looks, heart racing against her ribcage and hands at her sides, waiting. It would seem counterproductive to save her life only to harm her now, so she doesn't really fear him, yet his dark presence is still intimidating, no matter how much she wants him to ooze something other than pine trees and fire and anger and masculinity and–
"When your mother visited," he starts, his calm voice contrasting with the sour look on his face and taking her aback, "I conducted a meeting with all Daimyō and put them under my command—where they belong—if they so accepted my rules," he breathes out.
An image crosses her mind without being able to control its appearance, mouth reeking of alcohol breathing into her lips, a filthy hand on her hip caressing her through the layers of clothes. A push, a shove, and her body falling to the ground unceremoniously by Sasuke's feet.
It's Sakura's turn to frown, her teeth grinding down on her bottom lip in worry for a moment, and she has trouble asking the question. She looks away and down at her feet, worrying her hands together in front of her stomach.
"Did he... Did he-"
"He opposed to my rule," Sasuke answers, as if knowing her question before she's even asked. "Nakamura Nogi is no more."
At his admission, Sakura's brows lift from the previous frown and her head snaps up. An emotion he takes some time to recognise is dancing across her eyes: relief.
He swallows all the words he wants to say, and shakes his head once and once only.
"Whether my brother lives or not is my business," he says, interrupting the million thoughts of how exactly Nakamura Nogi had perished under Sasuke's command. She looks up at him again and scrambles for words, well aware that there is no changing his mind, but willing to foolishly try anyway.
"There is no need to dwell on this any further, so you shouldn't be-"
"Do not tell me what I should and should not feel, Sakura," he says, stepping away from her and moving toward another section of the forest, probably to train without her presence near him, questioning him, pressuring him to answer. "Remember your place."
Sakura's left looking at his retreating back, wondering how everything had spiraled out of her control the moment he first opened his mouth.
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She's lying down with her stomach to the soft mattress, half of her face hidden by the pillow under her head.
Sakura opens her eyes the day after her argument with Sasuke, and she represses the gasp she wants to let out at the figure next to her.
Her eyes widen a fraction more when she blinks several times, ridding herself of the blurry images of the morning, and confirms that her husband is in fact facing her, looking at her. His lips are set in a straight line, but he holds no ill will toward her. He simply observes.
She has the urge to jump away from the strange occurrence and run from the room, but another side of her convinces her to stay, to reciprocate the peculiar action, with only a few breaths in between them.
She stays, her body relaxing against the mattress once again when she realises he's not going anywhere. He has one arm under his head in order to face her comfortably, and she has the distant, bizarre want to reach out and move the few strands of hair carelessly covering his left eye.
She sighs instead, exhausted from a long night of dreams, too vivid and too deep for her liking, and talks against the pillow that comfortably hides half of her face.
"Tell me about him," she whispers, careful so as to avoid startling him—lest she's the one who makes him jump and run away, which is not why she decides to speak in the first place.
The previous day flashes behind her eyelids for a moment when she closes them, and she purses her lips at the approach she had taken. Then again, he had appeared out of nowhere, and she hadn't even been remotely ready to face him at that time. So she'd lashed out, controlled by her pent-up feelings, and destroyed whatever civil conversation she could've had with him in the process.
"It was wrong of me to speak to you that way, and I apologise," she whispers again, and opens her eyes to look into his own when he does nothing but blink at her gentle, unexpected words. "Tell me about him," she repeats. "Is there proof?"
Is there proof he's still possibly alive?
The rest of the question hangs in the air as he frowns, looking away from her eyes to follow the sharp lines of her shoulder blades under the thin covers. He's not looking so much as he is thinking about her words, but the lost, lingering gaze has its effect on her after a few seconds.
Her body squirms at his undivided attention, turning from facing downward to facing him, on her side, the white covers pulled up until they reach her chin.
A moment of silence passes between them, extending itself until she finds herself speaking once more.
"You can trust me, Sasuke-kun," she says, voice small and hesitant; true, in all the meaning of the word, nonetheless. "I already owed you my life before you saved it, so you can imagine how, when I say you can trust me now, it is because I mean it."
Although the sound is rough from disuse and low from the deafening silence in the room, he finds it in himself to speak.
"I went with one of the search parties when no one could find the body, but it was useless."
She knows this fact from his conversation with his advisor, though, so she just reiterates with another question.
"Is that all? My father's body was retrieved, but it had been severely burnt," she swallows, closing her eyes for the briefest moment, remembering how her mother had had to look at her father's almost unrecognisable face to confirm his identity after the battle. "Maybe..."
Maybe your brother burnt to the ground, too.
He hears her thoughts as if she'd said them out loud. It doesn't quite anger him as much as he thought it would—but he's just woken up, his body seems restless, and his eyes sting from the lack of sleep. He'd tried to sleep on their bed for the first time in days, only to receive nightmare after nightmare; his parents, his parent's parents, their brothers and sisters, all of them dead at his feet. The Uchiha clan, once big and victorious and powerful, burnt alive as he watches.
He shakes the thoughts away and focuses his vision once again on his wife, innocent and frail, yet so irrevocably peculiar and obnoxious.
Her sea-green eyes seem distracted and still sleep-rimmed, roaming over his facial features, and letting her gaze stay a little too long on the soft slope of his thin lips, before she ends her trek in his eyes.
They meet, and he sits up on the bed slowly.
"Maybe," he murmurs more to himself than to her, and gets up from the bed.
Sakura watches as he moves to take his morning bath, knowing full well that he's not going to let this go, and feeling helpless about it all the more.
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She's sleeping on her back two days later when she hears a groan by her head.
The sound wakes her immediately, and she turns her head slightly to the side, frowning at the image of her husband sleeping peacefully.
But then she blinks twice, and she notices the sweat pooling on his forehead and falling to the back of his ears, the dim light from the moon illuminating enough in the room for her to notice.
He lies on his back, eyes closed tightly as if in pain and hands in fists, and Sakura's moving closer before she can think twice, give him her back, and fall asleep again.
She can't ignore that he's suffering in silence, and her resolve to move closer only strengthens when he lets out another groan, pain ripping out of his throat as clear as the night sky.
"Sasuke-kun," she whispers, reaching his side and pulling him closer.
She puts one arm under his head and over his rigid shoulders, and the other over his chest, her palm resting on his tense arm. She's embracing him, her mind racing at incredible speeds at what she's actually doing. She's embracing him, Uchiha Sasuke, Shogun of Fire and only second to the Emperor, but otherwise supreme ruler of this country.
Ever since his nightmares, ever since they had married, she's occasionally tried to comfort him through the rough nights by running a hand through his silky locks. But those had just been innocent touches, not much more than that. Not like this, how she has him now, the warmth from his bare chest seeping through her thin nightgown and making her blush against the circumstances.
She expects him to move away from her touch, not lean into her embrace like he's doing now. He turns his body toward her in his sleep, subconsciously seeking her warmth, placing a hand on the small of her waist—clutching the silk, his short nails digging into her skin and making her hiss in discomfort—and resting his head in the small valley of her breasts.
She lets a few second pass by, wondering if he will wake up and move away, or open his mouth and tell her to move away, and she is met with the answer not too long after. As soon as Sakura starts coursing her fingers through his hair, she feels something tickling her chest, and it's a moment later that she realises it's not the covers or the pillow or her hair, but Sasuke's eyelashes fluttering open. His breath stills and, where it had been coming out in pained short gasps a few seconds before, it ceases altogether now.
Sakura tries to remain calm, her arms remaining still against him, feigning to not notice that he's woken up even though he probably knows she's well aware.
Somehow, in the time she takes to calm down and focus on resuming the slow movement of her fingers along his scalp, he loosens his bruising grip on her waist. Somehow, in the time she takes to focus on anything but the fact that he might push her away any minute now, he briefly lets go of her nightgown, only to run his hand from her bare thigh back up to the gentle curve of her hips, riding up her nightgown with the motion.
Sakura's eyes widen, and her hand stops caressing his hair the moment she feels his hand moving further up, ending at the small of her waist once again. His fingers are warm and hesitant, drawing circles on her sensitive skin, the touches making her bite her lower lip in confusion and something she doesn't quite identify yet.
She doesn't know where this is coming from. Maybe it's the fact that he's just woken up from a nightmare, only to be met with a warm body instead of the usual, stone-cold darkness. Maybe it's the fact that she started it all, making the unusual decision of bringing him close to her body in the first place—though not in a sexual manner, she had done it, and the rough pad of his thumb moving in circles around where her hip and waist blend only makes her sigh slowly.
He takes the sound as an incentive to keep going, and moves his hand under the band of her underwear, slightly pulling it up and achieving a certain amount of friction between her legs to build up, one that she doubts he even knows he's making. And it feels right, it feels like it's what's meant to happen because, the moment his lips touch the skin of her neck, she's moving her hand from his hair to his broad back, never mind the thin drops of sweat she finds along the way.
She wants to feel him against her, moving like she has been told he would, making her feel things she can only imagine from the books she has read. She wants to flush her body to his, run her hands down his chest, reaching every nook and cranny and memorising the way his muscles flex under the soft light of the moonlight from the window on the other side of the room.
She doesn't wait for him to fully wake up from whatever he'd been dreaming about. She doesn't wait for him to let go, get up, and leave.
She's on her side and then she's on her knees, both legs at his sides, sitting on his stomach.
Sasuke's looking at her now from the comfort of their bed, a frown making its way to his features at her strange action, and it takes her a second to know he's genuinely confused. Confused at what she's doing; at what she wants to do; at what she's done.
Sakura remembers her wedding night in the back of her mind, the rough, fast movements he had made inside of her, holding her still the whole way with his hands. She remembers her tears, the cold air caressing her naked body as soon as he had left, and the loneliness she had felt through the rest of the night.
She wouldn't be surprised if, even though he has been married quite a few times before, Sasuke doesn't know how to pleasure a woman correctly. It would explain his hesitant touches, his carelessness during her first time, and the confused stare she's receiving now. The other alternative would be that he does know, but chooses not to indulge in pleasuring a second party, and instead finds pleasure in only himself—but she pushes this idea away as soon as she makes it because, surely, the way his hands twitch at his sides, wanting to move to her body, are a sign that this is not true.
However, Sakura has been trained for this, has been taught the art of seduction from her head to her toes, and knows exactly what to do.
So she leans down and kisses him on the cheek, on his neck, and down his chest. It's not that she hasn't been taught to kiss her husband on the lips—it had been encouraged, on the contrary—but that rather seems overly intimate, and something about it makes her mentally shake her head, moving down his stomach, down, down until-
She slides down his loose pants, taking them off him while never taking her eyes away from his own—eye contact is something that had been highlighted in her studies, and she doesn't mind it. She especially doesn't mind it when he's the one to look away for a short heartbeat. She doesn't mind it at all.
There is a quiet contemplation in his gaze, a few minutes he takes to only watch her behaviour. This contemplation is cut short the second she moves his underwear down and sits on him again. He grabs her hands in his own, sitting up and startling her momentarily. His head is now close to her, looking into her eyes questioningly, but she only looks back.
"What is it? Do you not want this?" She asks, though the question seems redundant when she knows how much he wants this from her, if only for the clear sign between his legs. Him sitting up has made her fall back a little, and she now sits on his lap where before she'd been on his stomach. She knows he wants this if only for his grip tightening, his sensitive skin brushing against the cloth of her thin underwear with each one of her squirms.
"What are you doing?" He states this more than he asks it, but she understands all the same.
"What does it look like?" She replies, a small smile gracing her lips, reaching his eyes from the narrow distance between their faces. She feels his grip lessen for a moment at the sight, and that's all she needs to push him back down on the mattress, accommodating herself on top of him once again, hands on his chest to support herself. "Let me, Sasuke-kun."
"Sakura-"
Sasuke looks conflicted, torn between pushing her off and leaving the room or pushing her off and getting on top of her, but never entertaining the idea of this—her lithe body on top of his own, touching him like no one has ever, leaning down and leaving a trail of butterfly, hesitant kisses from his jaw to his neck.
"You can trust me," she says, leaving his neck and lifting her gown over her head, exposing her bare body to him without much preamble or much room to discuss. Sasuke's eyes widen momentarily, his stupor only hindered when a certain part of him twitches, a groan threatening to come out from his throat at what little he has left of self-restraint. "Do you?"
Sasuke can only do so much as move his hips up in response, and she can only let out a breathless gasp at the shock that travels from her spine to her neck in short waves, leaving as soon as it had started.
Sakura feels her heart hammering inside her chest despite her confidence. The only things keeping her going are the silent lust in his eyes and the physical reaction she has elicited from him, added to the fact that he has not pushed her away. Otherwise, she would have left the room a long time ago, shame following her out all the way.
As it is, she reaches behind her and grasps his length in her hold, watching as he gives a small jump at the unexpected cold touch. But he welcomes it with a grunt, moves his hands from the mattress to her hips, to the swell of her small breasts, first hesitantly and then more confidently at her every small sound.
And she moves him, moves with him, coaxes them both into a mess of pants and grunts. She slides him into her over and over only when she knows she's ready and only when she knows it won't hurt, not like the last time, and watches as he loses himself throughout the night. There is an instant as she's moving her hips slowly, getting tired of lifting herself up and down continuously, when he stills her motions and flips them, taking it upon himself to pound into her with uninhibited abandon.
She doesn't quite reach her peak, but she hadn't been expecting that in the first place, not this time, not their first time. She tries to erase previous memories; tries to forge these new ones in her brain, imprint them where once were tears and shaken hearts. This is their first time together, like this, intimately connected in every sense of the word.
She doesn't reach her peak, but she doesn't really give it much thought when he collapses on top of her in a heap of limbs and spent muscles, and she finds herself pressed so perfectly against him, every part of her covered by his warm skin in all the right places.
She runs her fingers down his chest, through his wet hair, and over his heated cheeks when he rolls off and lies on his back.
He lets her.