Chapter 18
"Aiko" Ugh, I don't want to hear whose ever voice that is right now. I just feel too comfortable to wake up right now. It's too warm and soft for me to get up yet. I burrow further under the covers and into the hard, warm surface next to me. There's a comforting weight settled on my side, and I find myself leaning further into the hard surface. It smells so nice here, like the trees in the forest next to the castle. I focus on the memory and drift back into my dream.
"Aiko, it's time to wake up" The sleep fog begins to lift, but I whine at the idea of waking up. A chuckle brings me further into the real world. When my hair is brushed out of my face, I remember I'm sleeping next to a person. That's right, Gaara and I got married yesterday. I can sleep next to him again. I won't ever admit to him that I missed it the past three nights, but I did. I open my eyes and see he's looking down at me. I smile up at him, "Good morning."
"You're a late riser. It's almost nine." If I had my way I'd always sleep until ten; Mother always woke me up at seven. Compared to that, nine seems like a reasonable compromise. I wonder how early Gaara expects me to get up. He's usually up at seven; he always apologizes about accidentally waking me up. And although I hate waking up so early, I do like spending time with him before he goes to work. It feels like a special time just for us. After Gaara comes home there's the possibility of visitors and Kazekage duties, in the morning it'll always be just us. Besides, it's easy for me to go back to sleep.
"Nine isn't late at all; I can sleep until noon if you give me the chance." I bury myself deeper into his side then snuggle up in the crook of his arm. If I can't sleep longer, I want to at least stay in bed as long as possible. It feels nice being in his arms and who knows when his next vacation will be. This could be the last time in a while that Gaara will get a break like this, I want to saver it. "Eventually we'll have to get out of bed." Gaara, apparently, doesn't want to saver it. "Do we really? I'm not even awake yet."
He leans over and kisses me softly and quickly, "Yes, eventually." Kiss, "We have to meet your parents and my siblings for lunch." Kiss, "Then I need to meet with the council members," kiss, "…before we head off to our honeymoon." The next kiss lasted longer than the soft pecks he gave me before; it was more passionate than the soft pecks he gave me before. His hand moved to the small of my back, somehow pulling me even closer to him than I already was.
A moan escapes my lips and I move my hands from Gaara's chest to wrap my arms around his torso. I melt into his embrace. Kissing him is starting to feel like a dream and I'm scared I'm going to become addicted to it. He flips me onto my back, settling between my legs, before deepening the kiss. Once he bites my bottom lip, he uses my surprised gasp as a chance to slip his tongue into my mouth. He fights for dominance, and I immediately give in to him, my tongue following his movements.
That drunk feeling is back again and from Gaara's current emotions he's feeling the same. My cheeks heat up at the arousal and hunger he's emitting. I gasp as his fingers slip under my shirt onto my back. They inched forward until they land on my bra but didn't unclasp it. His other hand slips under my shirt and his fingers glide up my stomach. I can't help but giggle at the sensation. Gaara responds by tickling me more seriously.
My laughter begins to radiate into the room, "No…stop…I can't…breathe…" I grab his hand to stop the madness. Gaara just chuckles in response, "Are you awake now?" Still giggling, I nod my head up and down then sit up, he sits up with me. I feel it again, his love. Its growing stronger and that scares me; the more he loves me the more I worry I won't feel the same way about him. I mean, how could he love someone he barely knows? And we are definitely still in the barely get to know each other phase.
I mean we talk. I know his favorite foods are salted tongue and gizzards. I even attempted to make it for him, then the kitchen almost burned down…. I'm still surprised he's still letting me cook after that. I know he works really hard as the Kazekage; it usually keeps him from eight am to seven or eight pm. With all that time away its harder to learn more things about him, the dedication is admirable though. Reminds me of how hard Father works to keep the Land of Fish running smoothly. Admirable but lonely. I wonder how Mother dealt with it.
The train ride out of Suna was a lot nicer than the ride to Suna. Riding to Suna I was nervous about my marriage to a stranger and pissed off at said stranger for hovering over me like I was a sick puppy. Now I'm not as nervous about my marriage and Gaara's hovering only moderately bothers me. I've even excepted being followed around by a team of nin, but I doubt that'd be negotiable even if I wasn't. It didn't help that we weren't really around each other much before the wedding and the weekend we would have used to get to know each other I was hiding from him, but his hovering is still there.
To be fair to him, I can't to save my life. Literally. I got lucky at home, Kaito could have easily killed me if Gaara hadn't come to my rescue. I shudder as I go back to that night. Should have killed me. I bring my hand to my neck to touch the area Kaito stepped on to hold me down. The bruise is gone but the pain still lingers. I stiffen at the anger I feel radiating off the person sitting next to me. Right, Gaara hates any reminders of what happened and he's watching me like a hawk right now.
His hand comes up and holds my chin, twisting my head away so he can get a better view. "Does it hurt?" He's staring at me so intently, its embarrassing. I can't help but fidget under his gaze; a habit I thought I had gotten over by now. I take his hand in mine so I can lower it off my face, "Its fine. I'm fine." He's not convinced, and his anger isn't subsiding. Better start deflecting; I don't want this entire trip ruined because of Kaito.
"Have you been to a hot spring before? I've only been to the one on the castle grounds." He seems completely caught of guard by my question, but he recovers quickly. "I've visited this spring a few times because it's close to home, but I don't often go outside the village except for Kazekage matters." That makes sense. Its probably hard to take a vacation from such a big responsibility and Gaara doesn't seem like the type to shirk responsibility. And yet he's taking one for me; makes me feel special.
"I don't usually go on vacation either." I beam up at him, "I'm excited." He nods and his mood finally shifts for the better. It doesn't go unnoticed how he wrapped his arm around my waist possessively and pulled me closer to him. Well at least he's not in a sour mood anymore but this is only marginally better. He's still smothering me but I've learned to ignore him when he gets like this, besides its not like he wouldn't let me push him off if I wanted to.
I decided to just lean into him and settle in for the rest of the ride, watching the countryside as it goes by. With every stop I find myself looking at everything outside the window with amazement. It all looks interesting and new; I want to explore every stop. Speaking of every stop, "When are we getting off?" we've been on this train for an hour and some change now. I'm starting to get restless. "Next stop." I sigh in relief and shimmy out of Gaara's grasp.
Our stop was the most bustling out of all the ones before it. The town backed right into the train station with different bath houses lining the street. Color exploded everywhere I looked; its all very different from the blue and green palette of the castle and the red and beige palette of the Kazekage mansion. There are women kimonos advertising their bath houses and men in stalls selling anything and everything. The entire town feels like an oasis compared to the desert surrounding it.
Our hotel was beautiful; a two-story traditional building nestled at the base of a small mountain. The white walls were accented with emerald-green pillars and a deep red roof. Paper lanterns with the kanji for luck written in red calligraphy lined the deck of the first floor. The sign above the door is also written in red calligraphy; Moonstone Inn. Honestly, for how small it was the hotel seemed even grander somehow. Like there was an air of lavishness to it.
Our room was just as beautiful. The large room was situated in the back of the hotel with a private hallway. The color scheme from outside travelled inside settling on the furniture and linens. the lavishness travelled in with it. After putting my bag down I walk around to get the lay of the land and I almost fell over when I walked through the back door.
The door led outside to a private deck connected to the room. Fencing and trees made the place feel extra private, although I bet it would feel even more private if the trees weren't bare. More paper lanterns line the ceiling of the deck. The decking ends a few feet from the door and step down into a spring bordered by stones; a stream fed into the water, trickling over a large rock that sat in the back of the spring. We have our own private hot spring?! How much did this cost?
Arms wrap around me, pulling me into the body behind me. "Do you want to take a bath before dinner?" My cheeks heat up at that suggestion; Gaara's never seen me naked before. I've never seen him without clothes on either. Well he's been shirtless around me, but his pants have always been on. I wonder what he looks like. He has nice abs; I've snuck a peek here and there just for the view. My cheeks start to burn. I wonder what "it" looks like and how big it is.
Gaara pulls me closer to him and whispers in my ear, "What are you thinking about?" I shudder when I feel his breathe on my neck. "Because it seems like its something that would be improper of a princess to think about." He's right, I am thinking about something naughty. Something that is probably improper for a lady to think about. I'm thinking about it even more now that I can feel "it" beginning to poke me from behind. He is big.
"Um" I don't really know how to answer him. It's not like I can lie, my emotions are giving me away. I don't want to admit it though, I'm embarrassed enough as it is. I want to go hide in the bathroom, but I told myself I'd stop hiding from him when I'm worried or embarrassed. It's not really fair to him. Instead I chose to spin around in his arms and hide my face in his chest. He laughs at this and it kind of pisses me off. He likes when I'm embarrassed; he's probably eating this up.
I mumbled into his chest, "It's not funny." He just laughs again which just makes me even more mad. Maybe I should have hidden in the bathroom. I look up at him ready to give him a glare but the look on his own face stops me in my tracks. Pure adoration, that's the face he's showing me right now. My face heats up again; no one's ever looked at me like that before. "Um" I feel like I should say something but I'm tongue-tied again.
He pushes my hair behind my ear and begins to stroke my cheek with his thumb, "Beautiful." He's been saying that pretty regularly since that morning we talked, peppering it in here and there. It feels so uncomfortable and weird. I'm positive I'm just average. Maybe I'm beautiful to him, but when it comes down to it, I'm just average. Just average. "You always get upset when I tell you how beautiful you are." Beautiful. There's that word again and it continues to make me uncomfortable. Why can't he just say petty? I'd accept pretty.
I look away from him, instead staring at the hot spring, "Let's go take a bath." I don't really want to talk about this; it's better to just deflect. He takes my chin in his hand and forces me to look back at him. He doesn't say anything to me; just looks intently into my eyes, pensive. I start to fidget as I wait for him to say something. I'd look away again, but he has a firm grip on me. After a moment Gaara closes his eyes and sighs. After another moment he opens them and says a simple "Ok."