There was a house with a family in it.
She doesn't remember where the house was, only that it was located on the bank of a river. She doesn't remember which river, doesn't remember where on the river, but she remembers the way the light shone through the trees beside it and the coolness of the water, even on hot days.
There was a house with a mother and a father and two brothers and a girl who had a name, a girl that is not Nana.
Nana was born from sweet burning incense smoke and the curved claw of the brothel owner's nail tracing the dip in her chin. She lives in a beautiful house with perfumed silk sheets and wide windows, and never wrung river water from her wet hair and never looked at sunlight dappled through trees.
There was a girl who had a name, a girl that is not Nana—not anymore.
...
...
...
He visits a few days later.
"I think I need to prepare more," he says—an excuse, she thinks—and Nana smiles, taking his hand into hers. With it, she can feel against her fingertips the beat of his heart and for it, a flash of heat rises to her cheeks.
It's odd for her, but it's there nonetheless: excitement.
She wonders with a barely formed thought, if he has thought about them meeting again like she has. The men she typically works with, the ones she likes, they don't always come back. Perhaps it's due to her bad tendency to crave the unattainable.
A shinobi is as unreachable as one gets for someone like her.
"We all want to be more prepared," she says to him, slipping her fingers from his wrists and to the skin of his forearm. Nana expected the prickle of goosebumps raising under her touch, but what she wasn't expecting was to find his expression, equal parts mysterious and open, to be so—
She lifts herself up onto her tiptoes to get a closer look at his eye and while she's suspended against him, she feels it. A temptation to do much more than look. She loathes his mask for a moment but finds herself almost grateful for it as the seconds pass.
Otherwise she would have kissed him.
Nana shakes her head of the thought before sliding her hands back down to twine their fingers together. In her mind she recalls their last time together and can't help but smile at the thought. Neither of them had taken off any clothing. His departure had been too fast to ask for seconds.
"Shall we get a little risky today?" she asks with a smirk on her face. "Do you want to play a game with me this time?"
His expression tightens but his gaze looks curious as he asks, "What game?"
"Strip poker." She feels like her eyes are shining.
His aren't—he looks like he wants to leave immediately.
At this, she scoffs. What had he come here again for, if not for more? She finds her confusion to be a bit amusing because it upsets her, this small rejection, and it wouldn't normally. Her reactions to him are unprecedented. With other men, it's different; the faster they climax, the faster she gets her pay and can say goodbye.
She doesn't want to say goodbye to him.
Nana knows why that is. He's something new, the only shinobi she has ever met and he is just... He is different from all the others. Perhaps it's because of how inexperienced he is, and the unexpected charm he shows for it. Or maybe it's more due to his hesitancy, the naïve reluctance to share himself.
His hesitance sparks a memory in her, not anything she cares to recall but it's there nonetheless. It reminds herself of the girl she used to be. Part of her feels nostalgic of her own experiences, of the time she'd once been brand new to the world of sex, of intimacy, of the self-discovery and the pains of growing up.
His silence makes things strained and she relents at his quiet refusal.
"Fine. At least take off your pants this time," she says, trying to inject humor into the statement.
He narrows his eye at her and responds, almost playfully. "Not before you do."
Nana isn't even wearing pants but an idea pops up nonetheless.
She can't help but laugh at it before raising a brow at him. "Look away then."
He does, visibly flustered and as she moves around him, she's chuckling. She can't help it, can't hold it in. He doesn't seem to understand but he turns away still, long enough for her to undo her obi and longer still, for her to close the distance between them. Reaching her arms around his waist, she presses her cheek against his back.
"Do you want to touch me?" she whispers, taking one of his hands in hers and slipping her arm in against his waist.
She can't see his expression well but from the breath he sucks in, she doesn't need to.
Nana takes his hand and lifts it to the waistband of her underwear, where he's sure to feel the edges of it. She fixes his fingers so that they hook and very slowly, she makes his hands pull her panties down. His skin runs over hers, soft and like satin and the warmth of his hands nearly make her weak in the knees.
Nearly.
"You can look now," she whispers as she steps out of the underwear that has fallen to her ankles. Her kimono hangs off her, loose around on her shoulders, exposing the planes of her skin; the swell of her breasts, the dip of her navel, the expanse of her stomach. She's a thin, short girl, so different to his taller frame with toned muscle she rarely gets to touch.
Somehow, despite showing herself to so many men before, she finds herself taking a few steps back to alleviate the feel of his gaze. It sticks her heart in her throat, makes her voiceless, and like a pot come to boil, she feels her desire stampede to attention.
"Can I...Can I touch?" he asks, his voice cracking.
Nana nods, unable to speak.
He steps forward, his fingers outstretched and the second he makes contact, Nana gasps. She leans into him, surprised by the heat that spreads through her under the pads of his fingers. She expects him to be more hesitant, sweeter in his touch, but as soon as she meets his gaze, he slips his hands around her waist and pulls her to him. Her thighs touch the fabric of his pants, making her shiver and swallow a soft moan.
The shinobi, he's bold. Much more than she thought a virgin capable of.
His fingers slide down to the curve of her waist, slip over her hip bone and he cups her. With a sound of surprise, Nana rubs against him in approval of this exploration of his.
"Soft," he murmurs, slipping a finger in the folds of her sex. He flicks it against her and maddened by teasing nature of it, Nana brings her hand to the hem of his shirt, searching for a point of access to his pants. She can't find it at first, her eyes rolling to a close as she arches her back and presses in closer to him. This is unpracticed territory for her.
Not many men touch her in such a place; they're after the self-gratification they paid for.
"I didn't think it'd feel this way," he whispers, his breath tickling the hairs at her neck and ear, so very quiet that she thinks perhaps she wasn't meant to hear. Thrills run through her, persisting the growth of heat in her abdomen. Nana shudders against him.
Hot, hot, it's too hot. She has to be sweating just from standing so close.
Nana recalls her sidetracked pursuit, and reaches her hands into his pants before she can be deterred. She gasps at the feel of him as she palms him, how thick and hard he's become for her. Nana rubs her fingers at the head, and loves the grunt he huffs out, the surprise in how he jerks against her.
"Pants off," she orders, and assists him as he sheds them, with the rest of his clothes soon to follow in the seconds it takes to scramble towards the bed.
Before it can be done with ceremony, his mask comes down and his lips crash down on hers, firm at first before softening as she instinctively seeks to teach him. She sighs, an admittance to the flick of his tongue against hers and Nana does what she so rarely does on a job; she loses herself.
In the touch, in the warmth, in the caresses and connection. Nana decides, if possible, she could spend the rest of her day just kissing him. Sighing against him, the shinobi—hers, in their time together—takes his mouth and brings it to her chin, then down to her throat, trailing soft kisses down the length of her until his lips brush over the tip of a breast.
Nana can't help herself as she moans, somewhat embarrassed by the uncontrolled sound.
His hand finds her sex again, and his fingers explore her, curious in nature even at it makes her ache with unfulfilled desire. She lets him discover this piece of her, patient even as her hips buck against him. Nana wishes to take his hand and show him how she needs to be touched, but the larger part of her loves the slow torture.
The longer it takes, the longer she can keep him, and Nana has so rarely enjoyed the journey of it.
"Can I taste you?" he asks, shocking her eyes open.
"I—what?"
She can't see his lower face but she can feel the shape of his smile against her skin.
"It'll feel good for you," he states, his warm breath cascading over her, sending chills through her. It leaves her helpless to speak, with her only form of communication the way she spreads her legs further and tips her hips up, a quiet demand.
His lips find her then, and the connection between her mind and body dissipates—she's nerve endings, uncontrolled moans and ache. He has her, his fingers curling over the skin of her thighs, keeping her as still as she can be. It's a practice in futility, the attempts toward stillness. A torture of a different kind.
He continues to lap at her, with that same exploratory instinct of his, and he learns. Listens to reactions and adjusts to it, narrows in on the spots she finds most sensitive, and with what can only be called devotion, he drinks her.
Nana rakes her fingers through his hair, and she doesn't realize how hard she's holding on until her hand comes away with silver strands. Her brain is too numb to feel guilt and with gasping moans, helpless mewls, Nana lets herself go to the pleasure he's offering.
She comes, explodes, consumed by the release of the built up heat from his lapping tongue. Her chest rises and falls, trying and failing to catch her breath as she looks down and searches for his gaze. She realizes mutedly that she didn't have a name to call out.
"I don't know your name," Nana says, dismayed.
The shinobi says nothing back, only kisses her inner thigh, an extension of that devotion he'd gifted her. Nana can't remember the last time she'd had such an experience and in a way, it leaves her feeling new and raw to it.
"Are you sure you're a virgin?" she asks, dazed.
He chuckles against her skin, his face still unseen and she wonders at the mystery of it. How he could touch her with such confidence, to be so inexperienced all the while. An enigma, a puzzle she's certain she'd never be allowed to solve.
Nana tries not to think it but already she knows. This shinobi, who can't even part with his name for her, could never chose her to unravel him. Not in the way he's done to her.
Amused by her bizarre thoughts and their intrusive nature, Nana shakes them off with a smile. She reaches for him and is amazed by the way his actions mirror her own. With her beneath him, her shinobi positions himself over her, her legs wrapping around his lower back and pulling him in, guiding him.
Nana has dropped her expectations of him—he meets them and disregards them in equal parts—but she keeps the feeling of anticipation for him close to her chest. She meets his gaze and drops her eyes to his fully exposed mouth. Nana doesn't know if it's a sign of something important, and if she has to think anything of it, it must mean he's comfortable with her.
The thought makes her smile as he pushes in, slow in the first thrust. Then, it's as if instinct takes over them both, and he loses any reason to go slow.
Nana loses herself, in the feeling, in him, and somehow she can't bring herself to mind.
…
…
…
Shinobi stamina is something else, but after everything, he looks exhausted. Boneless, sated, basking. He breathes evenly, but she can see the bags under his eyes.
Nana bites her lip.
"Would you like to stay?" she asks his still form, shamelessly draped across him. With anyone else, she'd expect unconsciousness, but she knows that he is different.
It takes him five seconds and an eternity to answer.
Slowly, carefully, he lifts an arm from his side and wraps it around her.
Nana smiles into his skin.
And he stays.