Source of Injury
Sakura had lost the chakra signature belonging to a certain yogurt splattered Uchiha and was becoming more nervous with each step she took. The Uchiha complex belonging to Sasuke's family had more than enough hallways to get lost in and she was currently sprinting through one of the beautifully designed spaces.
Her heart was pounding, and it had nothing to do with the memory of Itachi's fingers sinking into her hair.
It had been 7 minutes since she'd narrowly escaped Sasuke's wrath and she was beginning to feel dread creeping in.
Sakura's eyes scanned the hallway she was in for any sign of danger but nothing seemed out of place. Paintings hung elegantly on the dark navy walls on either side of her. She didn't have time to admire the architecture of the complex she'd never ventured into before. Gold and bronze detailing of archways and antique chandeliers looked like blobs of color in her peripherals as she whizzed past them. Her feet had carried her about halfway down the hallway when she was betrayed by its interior design.
The black vase detailed with shimmering bronze placed on a mahogany table stand to her right wasn't what she thought it was.
She heard the whistle of a cord through the air and missed the glint that shined off it before her right ankle was being wrapped with the material.
Sakura let out a scream as Sasuke's face materialized from behind the cloud of smoke from his dispelled transformation jutsu.
He had her.
She could only watch with wide eyes as the smirk on Sasuke's lips grew even more. With a flick of his wrist all the slack in the cord disappeared and with one leisurely slow tug he whipped her body straight to the floor. Sakura's heart had nearly jumped out of her chest already but the impact of her back hitting the floor with all her remaining momentum was trying to make it happen.
Her hair lay wild underneath her as she shut her eyes in pain.
Sasuke pounced before she could even catch her breath.
This time his left hand had a firm grip on her shoulder and his right arm was held out away from his body, fingers controlling the slack of the cord. His left knee was pinned to the floor and snug against her right thigh while his right knee was placed firmly between her legs.
The smell of whiskey and his body heat was making her feel like she had been day drinking in the hot sun.
Her blood contained too much of the liquor and her head was fuzzy.
That same familiar feeling of heat was hovering over her cheeks, but she hadn't had a single drop of alcohol.
She ventured to open her eyes so she could watch her inevitable demise. The smile on her lips was not a conscious choice.
The flood of Sasuke's chakra was slick on her body, in an oil spill kind of way.
Seeping into every basin of self-control she possessed. The poison didn't feel as scary as what she'd previously experienced. Sasuke had probably picked out the one that works fastest. Where you don't feel any pain when you get pricked and in the next moment you've slipped away.
Sakura wondered what the in between would be like though..
Every nerve bombarded with a fire that torches you from the inside out sounded thrilling to her.
'Hm.'
Sakura didn't rush to meet Sasuke's eyes.
Actually, she took the scenic route.
The strength in his artfully sculpted fingers was something she could draw maybe, if she made it out of this alive.
The veins defined over his hands made her heart slow.
His arm poised to pull the cord tighter at any instant made her head sluggish too.
His shoulders were filled with a tension that also tickled her own spine. His chest looked broader from this angle and the way his right pectoral was stretched under the pull of his right arm made her skin hum. His lower jaw was clenched in such a way that she almost felt bad for the muscles responsible.
'That'd probably feel better if Sasuke let it relax, wouldn't it?'
And then her mind was drawing pictures of what his jaw would have looked like the last time she had accidentally sat on it.
She mused she wouldn't be a starving artist if someone saw the talent of the model. Speaking of starving, how were his lips feeling that day?
An introduction party, with a menu that had forgotten to provide a taste?
Hm.
Such poor planning..
Sasuke was struggling with the reign. Both on the cord and on his control.
He had wanted to wrap the cord around her throat and bring her to him without moving.
He wanted a taste of the satisfaction he had seen on her face. For a man who avoided sweets, in all honesty, the vanilla of her yogurt wasn't sweet enough. But his desire for an ease that would cause him to slip later was not the most efficient strategy of war. His palace of control would be riddled with insurgents before Sakura hit his lap.
She looked like this at death's door?
He chose not to imagine any other scenario for fear she'd slip from his grasp again.
Both of their fury kindled for a brief moment as green slowly disappeared into black.
The way the last of the paint squeezes out of a bottle, he'd make her love the way he robbed her of her soul.
As a fellow master in the sweetest art of cunning, he admired her display of strategy.
Her quickness too.
It was obvious that she'd been a particularly devoted student.
But Sasuke was too.
Sakura had though...played a fine game.
Sasuke didn't have time to be concerned about just how much fun he was having because Sakura was under him, all lovely and all red and all wild and already thrusting her knee into his groin.
He doubled over in pain, his ears catching a "Cheat."
His hands flew to the source of injury, coil dropped to the floor.
'Well, since there were no rules.' Sakura thought as she attempted her last escape.
Sakura twisted to her front to break out from beneath Sasuke, her whole body fighting to drag her limbs far enough away from him. She had managed to get her left knee on the floor and her right leg close enough for her to push off the ground when Sakura, maybe for the first time, really knew how free freedom really felt.
But her shadow connected with her body.
His left hand was as secure as a neck brace on the back of her and his long fingers offered a greeting of reacquaintance against her scalp before he locked her position to his own.
It took a second for the world to stop spinning.
And kind of like how certain paintings become clearer the closer you walk to the wall she finally saw Sasuke at the end of her trip.
The satisfaction on his face was something more sinister than hers had been at the table where this hadall started. The way his eyes were excited about how disobedient she was happened to cause the release of a thousand tiny birds inside her stomach. While they took their flight her right knee was grounded.
His left thigh had dragged without gentleness over her right thigh, making her knees stay in the new bent position her captor had chosen. With the control his leg had over her he might as well have been pressing it on her neck.
As a medic-nin she was always fascinated in how muscles stretched. The body adjusted for every movement. She could plainly see her muscle stretched over the width of Sasuke's flexed thigh. In his kneeling position his right leg was spread open wide enough to make Sakura feel the strain in her left thigh muscle.
She ignored the part of her mind that liked the way he stretched her.
The kind you can't get by yourself.
She blinked slowly when the grip of his right hand around the whole length of her jaw tightened.
When had he caught her?
All of Sakura was in his palm.
And his heated eyes were filled with questions.
Sasuke watched shadows sweep over her lips as he pulled her chin down. The overhead fixture did a good job of casting them attractively onto her pretty face.
She could tell from his eyes that the only repeated question was one about how many games she liked to play. The gears in his brain were grinding as he tried to count how many but there were far too many and his suspicion told him it wasn't a number you could count to.
He liked looking at her from up here.
The pain hardly detracted from his enjoyment of seeing the fear in big green eyes lifting to him. One blink did distract him, for it whistled to his attention a sweet song about her dark lashes. Of how both their length and darkness were evenly matched.
And that's when he saw the cheeks that they had brushed.
Her lashes' stage was covered in the roses he liked best.
How humble for Sakura to be a graceful runner-up.
Sasuke released his left hand from the back of her neck to snatch her right wrist down to his waist.
"Heal it." The Uchiha's voice was low enough to still her.
Sasuke was curious about just what kind of game was her favorite?
Sakura was frozen again.
Sasuke's irritation matched his fasciation.
Winners get the spoils is what he told himself before he used his right hand to draw his prey by the jaw so her ear was just shy of his lips.
"Did I lie?" he whispered with a sincerity that caused her heart to startle.
"Don't be a sore loser." He said with all the satisfaction of a fat cat.
She chose not to answer but instead chose to be satisfied with the sharp intake of breath from the man who needed to be shown was true spoiling was.
Sasuke was stunned to feel his hand follow hers in a journey down.
His heart had taken a nasty spill down those particularly unstable stairs.
He felt admiration of her cunning when the small palm of her right hand cupped his source of injury.
And in the deliberately long second before the medic-nin allowed her chakra to cover her fingers Sasuke forgot all about being healed.
The cool sensation of her healing chakra washing over his heat caused an agitated soft squeeze of the jaw still in his hold.
"Are those your only rules?" she asked in mock curiosity.
He hated the irony of her sarcasm.
Because regardless of how cunning she thought she was he could see the evidence of the truth about her interest all over her chest.
"Hn." His mock seriousness caused her chakra to flicker.
He thought it was only fair he beat her in this game too.
His answer was enough to bring a new shade out onto her canvas.
Because it was an answer and not an answer all at the same time.
The irony wasn't lost on her.
But Sasuke's truth was found in the contact of her palm.
Sakura finished healing his source of injury and lingered her hand against his black trousers for a second more than she needed to.
Remaining a professional she made no comment about his body's response to her touch. His size was one she rarely saw on her charts.
Sasuke took a moment to enjoy victory because she couldn't say anything about it.
"Neh at least you're healthy Sasuke." His fingers felt the miniscule movement of her jaw that she couldn't refrain from making.
HR at the hospital would have a field day if they heard that their lieutenant was being unprofessional.
Luckily her profession forgave uncharacteristic cracks in exterior.
Sasuke however let out more than the smallest noise of amusement right beside her ear.
He released her wrist and freed her right thigh from his imprisonment. He used his grip against her jaw to move her head away from his, stopping her a short distance from his.
She'd gotten better at schooling her expression over the years.
He could once again see her striking features.
'That's better'
The quiet thought had no supervisor in Sasuke's mind.
And then he watched the confidence behind her eyes crack with each inch that he spread his right leg wider. He smiled when he felt her jaw clench as he reached the full opening of his hip rotation. Her eyes were enchanting as he stretched the muscle of her thigh just a touch more before he swept his knee from underneath hers in a motion so quick that her knee smacked the ground. His momentum allowed her hip to open to its full rotation and it caused her core to ache.
The desire to get closer was evident in her expression for that one moment before he left from underneath her body and it was enough to undo him.
His right hand slipped from her jaw and his body rose from its kneeling position in front of her. And before his sharingan could activate to memorize the image of Sakura on her knees in front of him Sasuke walked around her and all the way back to the dining room.
The medic-nin was left to unwrap the coil from around her right ankle that Sasuke had forgotten.
The giggle from her lips waited until after Sasuke had left the hallway to betray her poker face.
"Mendokusai." she said with a genuineness that could best be labeled as suspect.
The quirk in the corner of her lips lingered as she undid the last wrap of coil around her leg.
Summer days, when you had time to play, had a quality about them that winter days simply didn't.
AN:
Hey-yo
What we think about that tension?
Too much?
Not enough?
(Ya'll are like where the fuck is the descriptive stuff this bitch usually posts :') )
Fear not, my other one-shot probably has way too much description. I decided to indulge.