"I suppose I owe you a thank you and an apology," I said, giving him a sideways glance. He had a kind of orangish-pink hue painting his features as the sun was dipping below the horizon and I couldn't stop looking at him in that light.
"I'll accept your thanks, though I'm not sure what the apology would be for." He met my gaze and seemed to be just as intent on staring at me as I was him, though I'm sure I didn't look nearly as enchanting and other-worldly.
"For being so hopelessly thick, or as you would put it, 'impossible'," I admitted with a small smile.
"Hmm," he seemed to regard me thoughtfully before finally speaking. "Impossible, yes. Hopeless? No. You can keep your apology, I wasn't all too bothered by it."
"You could have fooled me," I said in jest.
"Well, had it been just you and me, perhaps I wouldn't have said anything at all," he mused quietly.
Oh so he just doesn't like other people looking… interesting.
"Consider my lesson learned. From now on, only my head stays above the water," I said with a small nod and playful splash in his direction.
"She vows such a thing and then immediately brings her hands out of the water, and to assault me no less. Perhaps she is hopeless after all," he said with his usual stoicism. Had I not known him, I may have thought he was being serious, but recognizing that he was teasing me pushed me to chase after the rare and elusive Itachi smile.
I scoffed. "Fine. I don't even need my hands to splash you."
He looked at me in waiting, patient as ever.
I glared hard at the water between us, willing it to pop up in a splash. It was easy enough to make ripples but it took a fair bit of concentration for anything more.
"Hah!" I cried triumphantly as the water's surface broke, shooting some droplets to land on Itachi's exposed shoulder.
Despite clearly being impressed with myself, he didn't seem to share in the feeling, instead he looked to be uneasy about it. I saw it before I felt it, a red drop hitting the water, trailing down from my nose.
"Ugh, sorry, I don't know why that happens. I know it's gross," I said quickly, moving to wipe it.
"This happens often?" Itachi asked, idly reaching over and brushing his thumb across my lip and beneath my nose.
"Just when I try to do anything with my abilities…" I said with a guilty shrug, feeling like I was somehow in trouble.
"Do it again," Itachi commanded, sharingan flashing to life in his eyes. They looked brilliant and gleaming beneath the fiery light of the sunset and I took a moment to comprehend what he said, distracted by all the pretty lights and speckled colors reflecting in his irises.
Far be it for me to deny the man anything he asked for. I clenched my jaw once more and narrowed my eyes in concentration at the rippling water, eventually producing another splash. A slightly bigger one, might I add. Regardless of how drained it made me, Itachi's thumb brushing across my lips afterwards was a reward well worth the discomfort.
"You're doing it all wrong, that's why this is happening," he said, washing the blood off casually.
"Well color me shocked, considering all my formal training." I snarked.
"You're about to get some. Sit up straight." he said, appraising my posture with a frown.
"Hey!" Kisame shouted from the beach. "You guys coming in?"
I hadn't noticed all the commotion had died down at one point or another. Everyone besides Itachi and I were toweling off and heading back towards base.
"We'll be right there, just doing some training!" I shouted back, worried that if given the chance, Itachi may have just agreed to turn in right then and there.
"How's my posture?" I asked, turning back to Itachi and sitting very rigidly with my shoulders back, a deadly serious look taking over my expression to the point of becoming a caricature. He wore a certain look of contentment that softened his already elegant features and I couldn't help but be stupidly endeared to him.
I found my body tensing up as he leaned over, hands gripping my waist and swiftly pulling me through the water to sit between his splayed legs with my back against his chest.
"Fairly good," he answered, his hands pulling my shoulders back so I was flush with him.
Yes, yes it is.
"So… your body is filled with a network which contains all of the chakra flowing through every part of you," he began in a very adorable professional voice, his fingers trailing down my arms, nails grazing across the tops of my fingers spread against my thighs before his hands came to unfurl and rest atop mine.
"However, just because you have chakra... in your hands, for example..." His fingers tapped against mine, "...doesn't mean that's where you gather the chakra."
"What do you mean?" I asked, my voice the slightest bit unsteady as I realized the front of my loose crop top had floated up, and with Itachi holding my hands against my legs, there wasn't much I could do about it. Whatever embarrassment I may have felt, it was nowhere near as powerful as the incredibly erotic feeling of knowing I was exposed as I sat there with my body flush against Itachi's, even if he wasn't aware.
Keep your head, Izumi…
The air had always felt alive around him, I had no explanation for it, but I quickly found out things were no different in the water. Whatever magnetic force I constantly felt pulling me towards Itachi was ever-present and I wondered… I hoped, perhaps beyond reason, that he felt it too. I breathed out heavily to calm myself down.
"You gather chakra in your core," he explained, pulling one hand free to hold against my stomach instead, his fingers curling in and dimpling against the soft tissue. I breathed again.
My, isn't he getting precariously close to your scantily clad chest?
"Right here. This is where you want to focus on gathering your chakra," he whispered, giving my tummy another tight squeeze and I relished the feeling of his elegant yet powerful hands on me. "Once it's gathered here, you send where it needs to go. Your problem is that you've been gathering it where it needs to end up, not where it needs to start."
"I think I understand," I said, absently enjoying the warmth of his skin while being surrounded by the coolness of the water. The sun had finally retreated beyond the horizon, leaving behind a hazy welcome for the onset of night, fireflies beginning to blink and float in the depths of the surrounding forest and the crickets started in on their ode to twilight. I felt like I was in a dream.
"Do it again then… and I do not want to see any blood." Itachi commanded in a whisper.
"That should be easy, considering you can't see my face, Mr. Behind-Me," I said, thinking I was clever enough.
The hand still on mine moved promptly to the back of my head, fingers twisting around and grasping my messy ponytail. The breath hitched in my throat as I felt him shift to the side and tug my hair back, my spine forced into an unbalanced arch only supported by Itachi.
"Oh?" he said, looking down at me with those scarlet eyes. They seemed to paralyze me as I stared up at him, my jaw hanging open and a few shaky breaths pushing through. His gaze flitted from my face to the water, his eyebrows coming together in something that resembled frustration? No, that wasn't quite it.
"Izumi… please tell me this black fabric floating up the water's surface is not your shirt…"
"It's not my shirt." I said quietly, almost mechanically, still staring up at him, unblinking. He gave me a disapproving look as if to question why I was lying to him. "I only did as you asked… and, well, you asked so nicely." I defended myself with a pout.
There was that smile I worked so hard for.
"Fair enough… and how long has it been like that?" he questioned further. The pressure of his hand tugging at my hair, forcefully craning my neck back to look up at him, it was mounting, and not in an unpleasant way.
"A while…" I admitted, sinking deeper into the pleasure of his grip holding me in such a vulnerable position. My neck and face fully exposed to him had my heart rate climbing.
He sighed with a close of his eyes, gently releasing his grip on my hair, smoothing his hand over it several times before pushing me back up into position.
"Here's what I want you to do," he began, pulling my shoulders against him once more to fix my posture yet again. "Take your arms and hold them out in front of you." His hands pushed up against my elbows to lift and straighten them out.
"And then?" I asked softly.
"And then you gather chakra in your core." He directed.
"My core?" I knew very well what my freaking core was, but I couldn't stop myself from inviting him to put his hands on me again. To my delight, the invitation was well received.
Well aren't we the little harlot tonight?
"Yes, right here." His hands left my elbows and my heart skipped a beat at the feel of his fingers sprawling across the smooth skin of my belly. It would have been more than enough just to feel the pressure of his hands against me, but I felt myself beginning to unravel at how his fingers continued to move and rub against my skin in gentle patterns. I couldn't tell if it was in my head or not, but almost undetectably it seemed like those fingers were steadily rising up toward my ribcage.
I tried my best to hold back a shuddering breath.
"Gather it, then release it forward," he directed. "I want you to produce a wave at least three meters high."
I balked. "Three meters?!"
"Yes. We're not leaving until you do it."
I swallowed hard as I steeled myself to rise to the occasion. "Challenge accepted, Itachi-sensei." I whispered daringly, earning me a snorting puff from Itachi, either entertained or turned on by my use of honorific. I'd take it either way.
Closing my eyes and focusing on gathering energy in my core, I found myself having quite a hard time with the whole concentration thing. Itachi's fingers squeezing against my ribcage and the tingling sensation lighting up every nerve beneath his touch were the most obvious culprit.
"Well?" he asked after a few long moments of nothingness, though I'm positive he could feel the uptick in my breathing.
"I'm…I'm having a hard time focusing my chakra…" I admitted weakly with a small shiver as his hands travelled up just a hair higher. They were so absurdly close to the base of my breasts that I couldn't seem to think about anything else.
"Try again. Breathe in and out slowly and release your chakra on the out," he encouraged with a gentle scrape of his nails against my ribs. I nodded shakily and took a deep breath in, holding it there, focusing on the heat coiling deep within my abdomen. There was a split second where I felt like I could visualize my energy there, swirling and knotting tighter and tighter. I grabbed onto that feeling and on the out, pushed it to my fingertips with a heady grunt. A wave, maybe a good meter and a half tall came rushing out of me, disturbing the lazy waters and traveling quite a ways before falling back into rhythm with the rest of the current.
I beamed and let out a disbelieving snort of a laugh. I whipped my head around, craning it back to look at Itachi.
"Did you see?!" I exclaimed through another laugh, unable to contain my excitement. While it was difficult to grab ahold of the chakra, it didn't hurt, not like it always had before. I couldn't stop smiling, it was the first time I felt like I had a modicum of control and understanding of my abilities.
Despite Itachi's characteristic stalwart stoicism, he seemed to not be able to hold in his own satisfaction as he looked down at me looking, dare I say it, pleased as punch. "I did," he said with a contented sigh.
"I know it wasn't three meters though… let me try again." I turned back around and righted myself against him, putting my arms back out. In my momentary rush of success, I had nearly forgotten about the hands holding my posture rigid by my ribcage. I tensed at the feeling of his index fingers moving up just slightly but enough to now be resting comfortably at the base of my breasts. Even without being touched, it was enough for my nipples to become almost painfully hard. I clenched my thighs together in an attempt to quell the odd sensation forming there as well.
I tried to mimic what I had done earlier but the next couple of waves were babies compared to the first one.
"You're distracted," Itachi noted. I nodded with a small whine. "Well, that's part of the lesson. There will always be distractions… it's important to learn how to work through them."
A sharp inhale pulled my lips apart as his fingers moved feather-light up and just barely across my firm nipples, causing my body to arch back against him before giving in to a shudder forward against my will, but Itachi quickly pulled me back by my shoulders as he had done several times before at that point.
"Posture," he reminded me before his hands moved back to my torso. The tips of his fingers sparked fiery trails across and up my quivering diaphragm, causing me to become more and more undone by the second. By the time his hands reached my breasts again I was internally a mess, trying with everything I had to keep my arms out steadily in front of me.
Another wave, this one maybe two meters. My heart swelled at it but I knew it wasn't enough.
"Try again, keep steady," Itachi whispered before allowing his fingers to pull across my nipples and settle there, taking a hold of them between his fingers in a long, slow pinch. It was my complete and utter undoing. A stuttered and unintelligible noise groaned out of me as I sank into the insane pleasure that washed over me. I jerked forward, nearly doubling over as the overwhelming feeling took over my body and set my breathing at a panting pace.
"Focus, Izumi," Itachi said sternly through a breath.
"S-sorry," I managed as I shakily pulled my body back upright against him and extended my arms forward. I could feel the growing heat inside me as detectably as I could feel it growing in him as well... The sensation of his hard, warmth pressing obstinately against the small of my back made me very much want to make sure I stayed pressed up against him. With a small whimpering sigh that I couldn't manage to bite back, I felt him twitch against me as I lifted myself, shifting up to grind into him.
Yes, posture. It's very important, Izumi.
He let out a barely audible noise of satisfaction from his throat as he slowly released the impossibly pleasurable squeezing pressure in favor of tracing light circles around the raised skin of my nipples and across my chest. He managed to tease out a litany of shivers and small little puffing noises from me in response, which he seemed to enjoy based on his now perceptible breathing.
Another sapling of a wave. Was it really possible to actually get worse at this?
Oh I'm sure if it is, you'll find a way.
"Focus," Itachi urged again in that baritone voice of his, though it had taken on a low sort of roughness. I wanted to, I really did. There was nothing I wanted more than to simply impress the man whose chest was busily expanding and contracting beneath my back. His fingertips dancing across the very sensitive skin of my breasts and catching on my erect nipples was making my head just the teensiest bit foggy and I tried, given the mounting urgency in his voice, to reel myself back in.
I squeezed my thighs together tightly and focused on the tightening, uncontrollable feeling swelling inside me. Visualizing it, I let it continue to grow and coil and bunch together in my core. My mind felt like it was swimming as the feeling of Itachi's fingers continued to run tremors through my body.
"Come on, Izumi," Itachi ground out, rolling against me from behind and pinching the over-sensitive nubs between his fingers very suddenly and even more tightly than before, causing my body to jolt forward with a gasping cry. My arms still extended, I released my hold on the chakra I'd been chasing in a rush.
I was thankful for the splash of the large wave that did well to cover up the accidental cry that had burst from me. I stayed still like that, hunched forward with my arms held weakly in front of me, for several moments as Itachi gently released his hold, caressing my breasts and cupping them entirely in his hands to bring me back against him. I leaned there with my head lolling over his shoulder, expelling heavy breaths from exertion and other things, and laughing through them with a stupidly swollen heart.
I did it.
"Did you see?" Itachi recycled my question from the first wave, squeezing me softly before letting his hands fall away from my breasts, arms looping around my torso instead. I had completed his little challenge so I guessed that whole distraction thing was over.
"My eyes were closed..." I admitted through a breathless laugh. "But it sounded big enough."
"You really are impossible…" he mumbled. "I'd say it was almost five meters."
I could do nothing but melt into him as he held me there and looked down at me with an expression I'd never seen on him, it almost felt like he was proud of me. Even if he wasn't, I was proud of me. I sank into the heat of his body pressing against and wrapping around me. The sky was impeccably cloudless and twinkling, as were the fireflies that illuminated spotty sections along the river bed in droves. Everything seemed so perfect in that moment, I wanted to just freeze time right then and there.
"Impossible? Surely you meant impressive. Oh, or maybe you didn't finish and were going to say impossibl...y impressive?" I said, smiling. I couldn't stop.
"Mmm…" Itachi agreed softly, "that you are." He was still for a moment but I could feel his breath on my neck. He was thinking, I could practically hear the cogs turning in that cryptic noggin of his.
"It drives me mad... the way you leave yourself so vulnerable like this," he whispered in a low, strained voice, pressing his nose into my neck and nuzzling some errant hairs away.
"Hmm, I figure I should be safe with you," I said, waving off his comment and enjoying how warm my back was compared to the rest of my frigid body.
"That's what scares me..." his voice came out low and even before pressing a searing kiss to the artery pumping wildly beneath the delicate skin of my neck. My eyes fluttered shut as a small sigh passed from my lips.
After a moment of comfortable stillness, just kind of absorbing it all, he pulled away with a sigh of his own.
"We should go in. People might start wondering…" Itachi whispered as he lazily pulled back and grabbed my waist to move me.
"Can't we let them wonder?" I pouted, hooking my legs around his so I couldn't be moved. Well, in theory anyway...
"Stay in here any longer and they'll be wondering how to treat your hypothermia," he chided, easily dislodging his legs from my own and pulling me through the water behind him and up the bank. "I think you'll want to put this on," he said, offering me his cloak. I smiled sheepishly and accepted. The night air had become chilly so I was quite grateful for the gesture. Itachi informed me on our way back that the Akatuski were gathering that night to do something very important, something he thought I might enjoy, which certainly piqued my interest.
A/N: Three chapters in one weekend? I know, I'm a monster.
Guys I just need to throw out a resounding THANK YOU to my peeps that leave me fun little comments. I love hearing from you guys, it totally makes my day when y'all have anything to say about this silly little fic. I also hate that some of you are guests because I want to reply but I can't lol. (It's fine, I'll get over it)
Thanks for all the reads to everyone that's made it this far. Buckle up, bitches, because shit's about to get MESSY.
