A/N: An author's note at the BEGINNING? WHat is this black magic?!

Content Warning: Some spicy stuff. If I get banned from this friggin place then find me on AO3 lmao. Same handle.

So this chapter is long guys. Over twice as long as my usual updates. I couldn't seem to cut it any shorter, trust me I tried. I might not be able to update Sunday because this took so much out of me lol.

I entered his familiar room and he followed behind, shutting the door. "You should lie down," he suggested.

"I'm fine, Itachi, really. You don't need to go through all this," I said quietly, feeling embarrassed that once again someone was needing to take care of me.

"I have to insist." He pressed his hand against my back, pushing me towards the bed. I didn't resist. His bed was comfortable, much more than the couch I'd been sleeping on. I closed my eyes for just a moment as I sank into it and took a few deep breaths. Itachi looked down at me with his usual vacant expression.

"Was it the sake?" he asked, clearly in reference to my bizarre reaction that I was still calming down from.

"No, I-I barely had any," I said, shaking my head, breathing in and out in a very calculated fashion. I had questioned the same thing but I knew that wasn't it, that was well over an hour ago and I'd only had one tiny drink.

"Was it… me?" I could tell he felt uncomfortable even asking such a question, one that left him vulnerable.

"No!" I rushed out, practically shouting. "No," I repeated calmly, in a second attempt at being a normal person.

Nice.

He looked over with amusement, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking my wrist in his hand, his pointer and middle finger pressed firmly against the inside of it. "Your pulse is still a bit fast…" he mused and let a silent moment pass. "Care to tell me what's bothering you then?" he asked calmly, returning my wrist to its position beside me, though I wished he held it a little longer.

"I…I-I don't think I can explain it," I said, feeling defeated and not in control of my emotions. I didn't trust myself to be able to talk about it, not even a little given my current state. "I'm... afraid." I admitted, my eyes downcast.

"Afraid of...?" Itachi pressed.

"I'm afraid that if I try… god this is so stupid," I groaned, covering my face with my hands. Itachi waited patiently for me to go on. I wasn't getting out of this so easily. "I'm afraid I'll start crying," I eventually mumbled into my hands.

"I see..." he said thoughtfully, "and... that would be a bad thing I'm assuming?"

I sighed into my palms and rubbed my eyes with frustration. "No? But also yes…"

"As thorough an explanation as that is, I'm afraid I don't follow."

What a polite way to call you an idiot. Maybe he really does like you.

"I feel like if I start, I'm never going to stop... Is that dumb?" I peeked up at him from between my fingers. I also felt silly being vulnerable. I was supposed to be fun, not depressive.

Itachi regarded me in the same way a doctor would a patient, as if trying to figure out how to fix me or put me at ease, taking the time to let a comfortable silence settle before he disturbed it. "Not dumb," he finally said with a slow shake of his head. "You don't have to tell me, Izumi. I have kept my fair share of secrets."

He paused to peel the fingers from my face, holding my hands away from me and placing them against the pillow on each side of my head. I expected him to pull away, but he remained there, pinning them beside my face and staring down at me with a certain intensity I hadn't expected.

"I-Itachi?" I asked, my voice cracking with uncertainty. My chest lifted upwards as the breath caught in my throat. Part of me was scared... but another part of me, a bigger part of me, wanted him to lean in closer and close the gap between us. He seemed to snap out of it, blinking once before pulling away in a rush and looking at the floor.

"My apologies," he said after a moment, regaining his composure. "I was only thinking about how I had been worried that I made you uncomfortable earlier tonight. I must have become lost in thought."

"No, no Itachi…" I began, waving my hand around like it would shoo away his anxieties. It was cute how worried he seemed about that. For such an intelligent, serious man, he could be rather silly at times. I quickly pushed myself up into a sitting position and grabbed his hand without a second thought.

"You were the only thing holding me together," I divulged, squeezing his hand in mine as if I could will him to believe me with the intensity of my grip alone.

He slowly turned his head to meet my gaze, regarding me somewhat skeptically.

"Look," I urged, tucking the hair behind my ear. I brought his hand to my face, leading his fingers to the wound that he'd become intimately familiar with during recent events.

"I know it must seem so silly to you… for me to feel the impact of a wound like this. So small… you obviously get way worse all the time... but I-I'm not used to it. These things are still scary for me." I released my grip on his hand but it stayed there, gently pushing my hair back and tracing the scabbed edges, a sorrowful look painting his features.

"A burn… from what?" He asked quietly, his other hand moving to rest on my thigh, finger tips lazily grazing back and forth. It was a comfort, to say the least.

"I honestly thought it was behind me... but when I smelled the smoke…" I choked and trailed off, looking down, ashamed I couldn't seem to complete a single sentence. I hadn't talked about it and this was exactly why.

"The cigar…" Itachi said with a sigh. "I should have known. My god, even Hidan knew…" Itachi murmured with frustration and a shake of his head, his hand went from grazing across my thigh to gripping. I winced and glanced up to see him glaring at my wound like it had done some sort of personal disservice to him.

"It's okay. I'm f-fine," I assured very unconvincingly as tears streamed down my cheeks.

Oh lord, here we go.

Shakily placing my hands over his, I couldn't tell if I was trying to comfort him or myself. My shoulders began to shake as all the sobs I had been holding in since that day wracked my body. I clutched at Itachi's hands even more desperately, fearing that if I didn't hold onto him I would fall into the abyss entirely. The dangerous look on Itachi's face quickly faded, only to be replaced with something that looked almost like... fear? Was this new territory for him, too?

"I'm s-sorry…" I sobbed quietly. He looked even more bewildered at this.

"What on earth are you apologizing for?" Itachi questioned as he pulled out of my grip, taking my face in his hands and forcing me to look at him. I fought to pull away, feeling overwhelmingly embarrassed at him seeing me pulling apart at the seams like I was, but he held me steady.

"I… I-I'm just being stupid and weak… even Konan said... so…" I choked through sobs. Itachi's typical impersonal mask cracked further with a helpless expression.

"Izumi… " He began with a sigh, "there is nothing I can say or do to take away this type of hurt." He said in a low, whispered timbre, his hands gliding down from my cheeks and snaking around my back. "Though... I can make sure you don't bear it alone."

The arms around me felt firm and safe as they pulled me onto his lap and moved to cage me against him, my eyes shocking wide at first before soothing shut as he held me there. Itachi was silent as I fell apart in his grasp, held together only by his hands, one gently meandering in a circle across my back, the other pressing my head against his shoulder, idly smoothing my hair. After letting the waves wash over me, I found myself calming down and lulling into him, sinking deep into the comfort of his warmth.

"And you were afraid you wouldn't be able to stop," he eventually said, soft and quiet and after countless minutes beyond when I'd stopped. I'd been enjoying the embrace and feel of the rhythmic circles he'd been drawing on my back far too much.

I let out a weak laugh. "I suppose that was meant to make me feel better."

"Meant to, yes. As it turns out, I'm not very good at this. Another thing to add to that list of yours, I suppose," He replied quietly, if not a little embarrassed.

"Itachi… thank you." I gave him a long squeeze, breathing him in as I did so. I knew it couldn't last forever. He let me cling there for a moment before beginning to pull away.

"Do you feel better?" He asked, looking down at me, his mask placid as ever again as he brushed the hair out of my face. I nodded slowly, staring up at him with raw, unprocessed admiration. How could someone as powerful as him, who had done the things he had done, treat me with such kindness? I couldn't put the pieces together.

"Did you… want to talk about it still?" He asked hesitantly. It became endearingly more evident that this was, indeed, new territory for him. I had never heard a note so unsure ring from the quietly confident Uchiha. I managed a shake of my head, I had done enough blubbering for one night and I truly was feeling much better just to have gotten that out.

"Is something wrong?" He asked, frowning. I shook my head again, unable to break out of my captivation. My gaze flickered between his eyes and his lips as I suddenly became very cognisant of our extremely close proximity to one another.

"No, it's just… your face is really... close to mine," I said without really thinking, my stunned stare unbreaking from his.

Oh my God, Izumi. Who says that?

"It is," he agreed. "And that's... a bad thing I'm assuming?" he followed up in a whisper.

I shook my head slightly. "Not bad, it's just…" I trailed off.

"Hm?"

"It's making me feel like… " I trailed off again, unable to vocalize the thought that sounded ridiculous even in my head.

"Like…?" he encouraged with a quiet urgency.

"...like you might kiss me," I admitted, my already warm face flooding with a rush of blood beneath the surface.

OH MY GOD, IZUMI. WHO. SAYS. THAT.

Even Itachi seemed to have a healthy flush after that, his darkening eyes boring through me with an intensity that halted the breath in my throat.

"You shouldn't say things like that," he warned, eyes unblinking and brows pinched tightly.

"Why?" I asked, barely a whisper.

"Izumi..." His tone was somewhat pained. Our faces were so close, I couldn't even bring myself to form words. The hand that previously held me by the back of my head returned to its place there, his fingernails gently raking across my skin as they moved through the hair before gripping it firmly at the roots. I realized with a pitch in my chest that even if I had wanted to move, and I didn't, I would not be able to. I raised my eyebrows at him in questioning, my lips unintentionally parting to expel a heavy breath.

"I am a man of tremendous self-control," He began, his voice even though it was tight in his throat. "But even I have my limits… and I'm afraid if you don't leave right now, you're going to witness me pushing those limits." The more he spoke, the more I could hear the effort wavering in his voice, as if it was taking a great deal of it to hold himself together.

"A-are you asking me to leave?" There was a noticeable tremble to my words. I had never seen this Itachi. There was a certain fervor to him, a desperate aching. More than anything, I wanted to satiate that ache, even if I didn't fully understand what it would take to do so.

Much to my surprise, he closed his eyes and began to laugh. It wasn't the kind you'd hear after a funny joke, nor was it loud. No, it was darker, cynical even, completely devoid of any humor. It was soft but guttural, his head tipping down until his forehead bumped against my collarbone. I could feel him shaking lightly against me as the nearly silent laugh continued. Finally, he spoke.

"In all honesty, that's what I should be doing, but no…I'm not."

He gradually lifted his head from the junction of my shoulder, gaze leveling with mine, fostering an intensity as if in an attempt to scare me off. And it was effective in a sense because I was scared, but it wasn't the kind of fear you ran from. No, I was scared of the unknown but at the same time, wanting so badly to know. I felt like I was completely at his mercy.

But do you even want him to be merciful?

I… I wasn't sure.

"Just tell me you want me to let you go and I will. I promise I can find the willpower… but I need you to ask me, Izumi. I… I may even need you to beg, but I promise I will." He had all but abandoned his usual calm and collected, man-of-few words facade and his eyes searched my face with a sort of manic tittering to them, but the only thing he would find there were heavy breaths crashing out like waves from between my hanging lips, fully flushed cheeks and eyes half-lidded. I waited for whatever would come next. Leaving was not even on the table.

He held me there for what seemed like an eternity, scanning my face for something over and over again. He simultaneously seemed desperate to find whatever he was looking for but also relieved that it wasn't there. There was a moment when the fervor reached its peak within him, his eyebrows knitted together and with no warning whatsoever, time seemed to stop.

There was no past or present, no world outside the four walls that contained us. There were only our bodies pressed against each other, his lips bearing down on mine with an intensity that left me no choice but to return it. The feeling of this man kissing me the way he was, I couldn't help but question somewhere in the back of my head how long he'd been wanting this. The searing heat of it felt like he was pouring every ounce of want and need and desire that had been building within him for an eternity, all into this one act.

I had come to know Itachi to be rather gentle, but this was not that, it was far from it. It wasn't aggressive either, however. It was just raw, condensed passion. His tongue begged against my lips and without hesitation, I let them fall open. His hands roving and grabbing messy fingerfuls of my hair as our tongues twisted and moved against each other, like if he didn't hold me there, I might disappear, like he needed to pull me closer into him to make sure I couldn't slip through his fingers like my hair.

I wanted him to know I wasn't going anywhere. I needed him to know that.

Without daring to break the kiss, I shifted and pushed up onto him, seating myself squarely in his lap, legs straddling his sides. The low, satisfying hum this drew out of his chest left me breathless, forcing me to break away with a gasp, my head lolling back for a moment as I seemingly forgot how to use my muscles.

"Always so vulnerable…" Itachi's voice, though muted as ever, had taken on the same fevered quality his eyes had and the sound of it alone set a weakness in my knees, immediately exacerbated by his teeth scraping against my neck, coming together in a scorching bite that drew a whimper from my lips. He followed with a gentle kiss, contrasting delightfully against the burning, residual pain. But pain was a strong word. Pain implied that I didn't like it, and that couldn't have been further from the truth.

I was thankful to be seated on Itachi at that moment, my legs numb and beginning to quiver as he wove a sloppy trail of urgent nips and kisses down to my collar bone. Itachi's capable hands held me upright against him by my hips and the small of my back and I wondered if he sensed that I actually needed the help, my entire body feeling like the bones had up and disappeared, leaving me limp and burning in his grasp.

I tried to focus on my hands, just my hands, starting small was better than nothing at all. I had to wrest back some control over my own body, at the very least. The enduring ache between my legs throbbed with it's own pulse so strong I wouldn't have been surprised if Itachi could feel it against his own pulsating self. It was painfully difficult to think about anything else, but through all my feverish panting and shivering, I knew I needed to. My fingers twitched and moved shakily to Itachi's chest.

Progress. I exhaled with relief and a thousand other emotions, and anchored myself there, fingers grasping and twisting into his shirt while simultaneously and inadvertently letting out a sharp gasp as Itachi found a particularly sensitive spot in the nook of my collar bone of all places. Realizing what he'd discovered, he met my lewd noise with one of his own, a deep, rumbling groan which vibrated through his lips as they worked the untouched skin. We seemed to feed off each other in this very primal way, and as he continued to suck on that delicate patch of skin, I found myself absolutely melting.

The shaking of my legs brought on by the nagging tenderness between them persisted intensely and I thoughtlessly rolled my hips forward with a drawling whine in an effort to find relief. Another strained noise passed Itachi's lips, tearing away from me and letting his forehead fall against my chest breathlessly, fingers squeezing around my hips and pulling me against him further.

"Izumi…" he said, his voice breaking. It was music to my ears. "Your legs…" His beautiful, powerful hands glided over top of them and gave a squeeze, perhaps in an attempt to cease their incessant tremor. He was unsuccessful. I had long since given up on trying to stop them from doing so, it being very evident that it was no longer in my control.

"I'm o-okay, I just..." I assured, apparently the tremble finding its way to my voice as well, before breaking off. I had stopped myself, feeling absurd in not knowing how to phrase what my body was feeling.

"You just…? What?" He urged me to continue between heady breaths and I felt his desperation deep within me because I held it there too.

"I just…" I started again, cut off by hitching breath as I felt him slowly pull me against him once more in a grinding, circular thrust. "Just…"

"What?" He asked in a deep whisper. I ground against him and was rewarded with a rough squeeze of my thighs and a breathy exhale. "Tell me," he commanded, but it sounded more like he was begging, his voice unravelling with every word. It was intoxicating.

"I just… want…" I couldn't bring myself to finish.

"So help me Izumi…" Itachi ground out, leaving me with the impression that if I didn't spit it out he would find a way to pry it out of me.

Trembling fingers. Racing heart. Dry mouth.

"I just want you," I breathed out in a rush.

Despite the desperate, fevered expression that had consumed the whole of Itachi's face up until that point, it shifted just slightly, his brows lilting in such a way that almost broke my heart. Like he had just heard something for the first time, something that he'd been waiting for as long as he could remember, perhaps even something that he thought he would never deserve. It wasn't about the sex, as I was quite sure women had expressed their attraction to him before. No, it was something much more deep-seated than that. And I had said I wanted him, but that's not what I meant, not truly.

"I… I need you," I amended quietly, breathlessly, with all the courage I had left in me. I felt awkward and weird expressing such things out loud, but I had no other way of phrasing it.

Resisting the overwhelming urge to punctuate my admission with the slow roll of my hips, I stilled them. I wanted him to see it in my face, just my face, that I meant it. I truly did need him and while there was certainly a physical aspect to that frenzied desire, it ran much deeper than that in a way I couldn't put into words. Itachi wasn't good with words either apparently, maybe that's why we were using our bodies in such a way. It felt impossibly right.

I held his gaze with mounting anxiety. It was his turn to say something. He almost looked frightened, though not enough to stop him, he was far beyond the point that anything could do that. His hands became gentle once more and moved to capture my face.

"Izumi… are you sure?" Now he was the one speaking breathlessly and I was absolutely captivated by the man coming undone beneath me. His eyes stared unblinkingly, intensely waiting. I could tell he recognized he would be my first, the inherent importance of it, and if I knew Itachi at all, he was concerned that I would regret such a thing later, to put him in such a high station.

I nodded, also unblinking and with a fiery heat beneath my cheeks.

"I need to hear you say it," he said in a way that told me he couldn't possibly believe what was happening.

Join the club.

I wrapped my tiny fingers around his wrists to hold him there. I wasn't running away and he wasn't allowed to either.

"I am absolutely…" I began before moving in to capture his lips, unable to even stop myself.

"Positively…" breaking away for just a fraction of a moment before needing more. He returned the kiss with fire, our tongues melding and blistering against each other in a slow, passionate dance. I pulled away breathlessly and found it somewhere within me to get out one last word.

"Sure."

I felt like I was hanging off each passing breath from his lips as he stared at me intensely, processing, perhaps playing shogi again. If he thought I knew what to do next, he was out of his mind. So I waited there, my hands wrapped around his which cradled my face adoringly, my heat on top of his. I waited there with my heart in my throat and my legs still shaking in anticipation.

The look in his eyes came back into focus and I knew he'd already made his next hundred moves.

"Arms up," he directed. The feverish, clamoring Itachi had gone dormant, a semblance of control and gentleness returning. His hands moved to the bottom hem of my shirt. I swallowed, suddenly nervous about what was to come. It would be the first time he would see me and I couldn't help but wonder...

What if he doesn't want you?

My hesitation did not go unrecognized.

He paused there, eyes flitting to survey me before his fingers abandoned the shirt, moving instead to grab my chin and pull me in for a honey-sweet, potent kiss. If there was ever a moment I questioned his motives, if he cared for me or just my body, and I had questioned it… the way he kissed me then buried all those fears. My heart swelled and fingers entwined themselves in his hair as we kissed over and over again. I could have done it forever, despite the impracticality of such a thing.

Chapped lips be damned.

"You don't need to be nervous," he said quietly, breaking away and pressing a reassuring kiss to my forehead which I leaned into with a sigh, my fingers gently sweeping across his chest to feel his heartbeat. Despite his composed exterior, it seemed oddly rushed.

Itachi's fingers fell to the hem of his own shirt this time, and as he pulled it off, I leaned back to take him in. Thoughtlessly, my fingers moved to trace the scar I had gotten to know very well in previous encounters. I let them smooth over his skin the way one might run their hands over a fine marble statue, exploring every crevice and curvature of bone and flesh and muscle, evoking small twitches that had me completely entranced. He was timeless and beautiful just the same.

"Arms," he eventually said, but I could tell it was more of a question as he angled his head down to meet my timid gaze with a look that begged me to trust him. And I did, completely and implicitly, the foolish, naive girl that everyone liked to remind me that I was.

I raised my arms above my head. Itachi's eyes didn't move from mine, even as my shirt hit the floor. They eventually travelled upwards to regard my hands though, which I kept in the air in spite of the shirt having long since been removed. He hadn't told me to bring them back down after all. There was a curiosity present in his expression as he looked at them, then at me with a tilt of his head.

"I thought to spare you from my overbearing rules tonight, Izumi… but you like them, don't you?" He asked with darkening eyes. I nodded slowly, my own eyes pleading. I did like them, I liked them very much. I didn't know what to do with myself without them.

"They make you feel safe," he murmured aloud with a certain fascination and, dare I say, satisfaction in realizing it. I just stared back, biting my lip and hoping that was okay.

"Very well then," he whispered, pulling my wrists down to his mouth, allotting each one, just there on the inside, the faintest press of his lips.

He took care in shifting out from beneath me, capturing each breast in his mouth as he did so, one after the other, gently sucking and nipping, his tongue running over each delicate little pearl and sending a full-body shudder and a series of soft gasps to ripple through me. Slowly lowering my arching back to lay against the cotton sheets, he gave them each a soft, parting kiss and pushed himself up, coming to stand over the bed. His hands slipped beneath each of my knees, pulling me toward him and maneuvering me so my bottom rested just shy of the edge of the mattress.

The way he looked at me was like he was trying to etch it into his memory, as if he might lose his sight tomorrow and he needed this to be the thing he remembered most vividly. And though that wanting expression alone made me ache for him even more, it also made me feel like a spotlight blared down at me. My arms moved to cover my chest as I allowed my eyes to shamelessly traipse down his body in return, feeling very much like I was getting the better half of this deal.

"Your hands…" He began as he took them into his own and brought them to lay flat against the sheets at my sides. "They stay here… easy enough, yes?"

I nodded, the breath still shaking from my lips. "Is that it?" I asked. I didn't mean to sound disappointed. That slight smile, that ever-endearing amusement present on his face would be my undoing though. It was like he knew something I didn't.

"There is another… but I'll tell you when it's relevant. Be patient, Izumi." His fingers dipped under the elastic of my pants and underwear together, and with a slow series of tugs, they too were on the floor. My breaths were deep and wavering, eyebrows arched in a way that begged for his touch so I wouldn't feel so ungodly exposed. Like just his hands on my body might cover me up enough to put me at ease. But he wouldn't, or maybe more accurately, he couldn't. He seemed to be frozen, save for his own breaths and dilating pupils, as he stared down at me from his position between my legs, my knees hugging his waist and his hands atop them. I watched the shifting lump in his throat as he swallowed, his fingers hooking into his own pants to remove them as well and put us on equal ground.

Unsurprisingly, even without clothes, he was beautiful. Despite it making me feel like even more of a scrub comparatively, I pushed the thought away in favor of marveling at the way the lean muscles moved beneath his skin as he raised his arms to comb through his hair. They stayed there entwined for a moment as he breathed out, regarding me in a similar way.

"My God, you are…" The man of few words paused, seemingly at a loss for them entirely, "...impossibly impressive," he eventually finished in a barely audible, breathy murmur, and I couldn't help but let out a wisp of a laugh at his callback.

His eyes roamed over me. The hands in his hair fell to his hip before one apprehensively moved to wrap around his length. I couldn't look away, the sight of him grabbing himself, the idle pumps as he stared down at me like his appetite was insatiable but dammit was he going to try... It was driving a spike of heat through my core that pooled and burned so unbearably hot.

Yes, please do try...

He pressed his hands into the bed on either side of me and leaned down capture my lips in a slow, undulating kiss which I softly moaned into as I felt him press against me, his length sliding up and over the sensitive patch between my legs, igniting the tremor in them all over again.

I held my breath in anticipation of what I expected to be a painful plunge, but while he did move along me at a lazy, rocking pace as he deepened the kiss, he did not enter. My shaking thighs clenched his sides and my fingers grabbed at the blankets feverishly, back arching and chest pressing against his as his lips moved against mine with hunger.

"Not yet…" He said in a low timbre, breaking away just slightly to reach a hand down and briefly check the position of my hands. I was being a good girl at the moment and he seemed to mentally note this.

His fingers gently touched against me, gliding up my slit. He paused, pulling away even more and looking back at his hand. The unreadable, bemused look that washed over him sent a jolt through me in the worst way.

"What? What's wrong?" I asked frantically, already embarrassed without even knowing anything and pushing up to my elbows to see.

"Hands," Itachi reminded quickly and I laid back down, grabbing at the sheets but still craning my neck to see.

"Izumi…" he said breathlessly, "you are very wet…"

"I-is that… bad?" I bit my lip, feeling stupid.

The shake of his head was measured and slow and it did not go over mine that his sharingan had activated. "No," he said, putting one hand on my knee to hold me open, leaning in close, and slowly pushing the slickened finger inside. "It's not bad, Izumi."

The outside world had already stopped when I first felt his lips against mine, but now even time inside those four walls felt like it had choked to slow-motion. He was staring at me like I was the only person left on earth and I wanted to keep watching him watch me. Eyes fully focused but half-lidded, lips just barely parted. I could have lived off that look and the arch of his brows tilting up in a way that urged me to give in to every spark I was feeling and finally just let myself light aflame. I wanted to keep looking, as I never got to see such a raw, stripped-down version of Itachi and I needed to savor every last second of it.

But my body moved without my consent, lids clenching, fingers gripping, back arching, entire body shivering with the feeling of him inside, even with only one finger I couldn't get over how tight it felt. For a split second I worried about how anything else could possibly fit but I reeled back into the moment. We would figure that out later. He pulled out and entered again, slowly at first but steadily picking up pace over time, eliciting a stream of whiny little puffs from me as it began to scratch the surface of what I'd been craving from him.

He watched me shrewdly from his position above, those heavy-lidded sharingan irises of his taking in every spasm and uncontrolled movement my body met him with. I could tell when it reacted in a way he particularly liked because his brows would tighten together and lift, a noiseless "oh" breathing from his lips.

Another finger, not without effort, and a sharp inhale. I almost didn't hear the nearly inaudible, strained noise that hummed in Itachi's throat over my own surprise. I wondered if he was just as amazed as I was at the unyielding tautness of my muscles around him.

Maybe that's why you're such a weakling, all your muscles have been hiding in your freaking vagina this whole time.

I promptly told my inner dialogue to shut up. This was not the time for snappy zingers as far as I was concerned.

The feeling verged on pain as both fingers stretched me open, my walls fighting to adjust and accommodate. I twisted my hands into the sheets just to keep them there, starting to understand why the hands rule was deceivingly difficult. I fought against my body's reactions which had me desperate to rake my hands through my hair or his, it didn't matter which.

Fingers pumping and curling against me, flexing and stretching. I descended into an unravelled mess of squirming and soft noises, grabbing and releasing the blankets in frenzied repetition, wanting nothing more than to be able to touch him. Whatever modesty had existed within me before was gone, and there was no denying that I longed for him above anything else.

That empty, pulsating ache between my legs, though partially sated, still persisted. That overwhelming desire to be even closer, even fuller, despite the nearly painful tightness already… I couldn't bear it any longer and I think he knew that. I desperately wanted him to feel what I was feeling.

"Itachi… please," I whined, reaching for him, inadvertently breaking his rule, but it was too late to take it back. He grew very still at this and I tensed, spiking heart rate, in waiting for his reaction.

"Say… say that again," he commanded quietly after a brief silence, fingers pulling from me and settling on the sensitive little bundle of nerves just outside. I wasn't sure which part had triggered his reaction. Was it his name burning off my lips, swollen and pink from biting back groans? I realized then, given his occupation and general demeanor, that the women he'd been with before were likely near-strangers and he'd probably never heard his name in bed.

Or maybe he just wants to hear you beg… so beg the man already.

"Please… Itachi… I-I..." My voice broke as he quickened his pace against me and I struggled to form words with the unfamiliar mounting of pressure tightening within me. That little bundle had been swollen and wanting for a full day at that point and the sensitivity of it was excruciating in the most delicious way. His eyelids fluttered for a moment before finding focus again. He seemed to take great pleasure in watching me writhe and arch beneath his touch, unable to move my hands. Ever the opportunist, he took the liberty of leaning down to kiss me, perhaps just to hear me moaning and sighing against his lips. But that was okay with me, my breathing rapid as he pushed me towards the edge. He moved his mouth against my ear.

"Not yet."

His pace slowed to almost nothing and I let out a wanting sigh. His eyes devoured me beneath half lids and if they could have spoken, they would have said, "be patient."

I shakily nodded at the unsaid comment with a wavering breath, all too eager to show my obedience despite the fact that I wasn't all too sure I could do that.

He stopped altogether before sliding down and pushing his fingers into me one more time, curling up in a beckoning motion as if appraising me, checking to see if I was ready for what was to come. I seized up at the impossibly pleasurable feeling, whining softly as he pulled out of me and positioned himself at my entrance, the tip pressing against it with heat and a glistening bead of precome. His name promptly left my mouth in a desperate little puff as I reached for him once more, my nails catching and grazing along his hip bone. I couldn't stop myself.

"I will deal with that later..." he said with a certain shakiness to him, grabbing my wrist and pushing it back onto the bed. It became clear to me that this was a man trying desperately to maintain control over himself, but having about as much luck as I was in ceasing the shake of my legs.

Hands on my hips, he tugged me to the very edge of the bed, one hand slipping under my knee, pulling it up and straightening the leg against him so my ankle rested by his neck. The other hand wrapped around himself, adjusting the tip against me. He paused there, breathing unsteadily and eyes casting across me.

"Ready?" he asked, punctuated with a hard swallow and a thorough survey of my face. I nodded.

"Izumi, please…" he said weakly, his head sagging forward on his shoulders, hair hanging in front of his eyes, still shakily restraining himself at my entrance, "you know I need to hear it."

Undone Itachi was truly a sight to behold.

"Itachi, please..." I mirrored his own plea, a desperate flutter to my voice.

Pupils retracting and dilating, gazing intensely at me from behind a messy curtain of hair, he breathed in and held it there, sliding in just barely. My nerves lit up and I clenched around him, biting my lip, causing him to pause.

He breathed out heavily once. Twice.

"Are you sure?" He asked, and I worried because I was beginning to think that he was the unsure one.

I'd like to think both of us shared the same expression at that moment. Like we were leaping off a cliff together, one so deep that it descended into nothing but darkness, scared and unknowing of what we'd find at the bottom. But we were curious, so ungodly obsessed with finding out.

"Yes..." I managed to whimper in the most undone way.

Pressing in further. Pausing with another unstable breath, both of us. It was painful to the point that it felt like we were attempting the impossible.

"Slow…" I begged in a tight whisper. My fingers were diligently squeezing at the cotton sheets in rhythm with my breathing in an attempt to bear through it. He nodded. Another heavy breath.

"You tell me when you're ready," he said, strained yet softly, giving a small squeeze to the leg he held against his chest, his head turning to the side and occupying himself by pressing feathery kisses to my ankle as he waited. I focused on the way his lips felt against the delicate skin there instead of the feeling of being torn in two. The pain wasn't really going away, though I had somewhat adjusted to it and distracted myself from it.

"O-okay," I breathed out after a moment.

Another kiss to my ankle. Another small push, a little further. I sucked the air in through my teeth sharply with a wince, a whimper passing my lips, feeling fuller than anyone should at only halfway in. Even through the stretching ache, I made sure my eyes stayed open so I could watch his face as my tightness took him. I wondered if it was painful for him as well, and I suspected it was, though in a different way. Painfully slow. His jaw clenched and flexed as he maintained his controlled, torturous stillness, but as his eyes passed over me and took in my own pained expression and noises, I could practically hear his heart drop.

"Izumi… I… I'm hurting you." His distressed voice and staggered breaths, that anguished expression, it all set off alarms in my head. I knew immediately he was about to pull out, put a stop to the whole thing, and not for him but for me. For my sake. But I had decided that I did not want his mercy. I wanted to finish what we started.

Sure enough, I felt him shift to pull away. Panic set in, my body moving on it's own, my free leg wrapping around him in a primal motion. A desperate, aching "don't go" trembling from my lips as I crushed myself against him. The pain spiked through me sharply, enough to bring welting tears to my eyes, a harsh inhale through chattering teeth, but there, with him fully sheathed on me, I came to find that it was no longer only pain. There was something else, somewhere deep inside me that he was pressing against and it caused my eyes to roll back.

A loud, guttural groan grinding out from behind Itachi's flexing jaw was all the motivation I needed to peel my eyes open. He was still and panting with his head tossed back and lids tightly shut. My leg still pressed firmly against his chest which he clung to with one of his hands, his other gripping my thigh as if he needed it to hold himself up. The sight of him unhinged like this set my every nerve ablaze.

His head fell forward, cheek pressing against my leg as he looked down at me intensely. I rocked against him just barely, wanting to feel him against that spot again so it wasn't just the harsh feeling of being stretched beyond my limits.

"I told you I was sure," I whispered in a broken voice to answer the question of "why" which was written all over his face. He began to pull out and I tried to lock my leg around him again but he pressed down on my thigh to hold me still.

"Not going anywhere…I promise," he assured with an earnest glance, pulling out a little more before pushing back in. He was slow and sweet and as he pressed flush against me, the pain receded even more with each press to the point that it was nearly gone after several slow thrusts, instead replaced with blinding pleasure that drew several noises from my lips, not a single one of them ending up as an intelligible word. A quiet expletive muttered by Itachi sent my hips rolling forward to meet him, dying to hear another. I hadn't even realized that my hands had moved to comb through my hair at one point during all that.

"I've been lenient but this is the fourth time, Izumi," Itachi scolded, pumping a few more times before halting and grabbing me by the hips, pushing me back on the bed and climbing over me. The longing emptiness quickly filled as he pushed into me once more. I winced through the initial pain, nowhere near as bad as before, and settled into pleasure as he struck that same chord even more intensely at this angle.

One hand pressed into the bed, holding him aloft. The other gripping both my wrists above my head. Bucking into me wordlessly, our bodies against each other speaking loudly enough for the both of us, he held down me so tightly that I couldn't possibly move. As was true to his nature, he managed to wrest any shred of control away from me and I shamelessly delighted in being powerless beneath him. In fact, it was quickly sending me over the edge. The darkness at the bottom of the cliff was within view and I was well on my way to falling into it.

"Itachi…" I pinched out in a strained voice.

"Hm?" He asked through a groan, not letting up.

"I… I think... I'm going… to," The pressure was building to the point of overflow and I quickly approached the precipice.

"Not until I say." He pushed up to look down at me more thoroughly, slowing his pace just barely. Just enough to keep me teetering but not send me over.

"What?"

"This is the other rule… not until I say," he slowed even more and I could tell by the look in his eyes that he revelled in keeping me there on the brink.

I closed my eyes and sank into his every thrust, his name falling off the tip of my tongue with each one. Begging him over and over.

"God…" Itachi breathed out, eyes rolling back for a fraction of a second, as if I left him no choice but to let me have it, and somehow that was the most terrible and delightful thing anyone had ever done to him.

I pushed my hips forward and he quickly snapped to meet me, his pace suddenly errant and rapid.

Oh god. Oh dear lord. This is it.

"Not yet," he ground out. Tears of pleasure streamed from the corners of my clenched eyes from the effort of holding in the mounting, all-encompassing feeling crushing into me with every movement of his hips against mine.

"Please! Itachi…" I cried out as I felt myself edging up to the line. It was practically tearing me to pieces.

"Now," he grunted with a powerful jolt and several more to come after it.

We devolved into a mess of sweat and limbs, labored breathing, twisting sheets and the sweetest noises I ever did hear. My entire body seized as he overtook me. I wanted to wrench my hands into my hair but they were still pinned beneath his and I had no choice but to let it consume me helplessly. My name fell from Itachi's lips in discordant syllables, each one a grunting, whispered staccato as he finished right behind me.

After a final, gentle push into me, he slowly pulled out and fell to my side and both of us laid there in the breathy silence of the room. It was all I could do to shakily stretch my hand over to lay atop his abdomen, just wanting to be connected somehow still, and my heart couldn't help but skip a beat as his hand quickly topped it, his fingers curling and lacing with them.

"How is it that you misbehaving does this to me…" He eventually mumbled to himself, causing me to snort out a breathless laugh.

"Have you ever thought that maybe your rules are too difficult?" I rebutted.

"No. Is that something I should think about?... And here I was thinking you liked a challenge."

"Mmm no… I'd rather you think about me." I attempted to flirt.

"Already done," he replied quietly, rolling onto his side to press a kiss to my forehead before pulling me into him absently.

A stomach is no place for butterflies. How dare you, Itachi Uchiha.

I breathed him in deeply, my face buried in his chest, feeling like I was coming down from a high, my entire body tingling and warm. I curled an arm around him and idly ran my finger tips in loose patterns across the skin of his back. We stayed like that, content and melting, for a long while before I felt the breath of a sigh across the top of my disheveled hair, followed by a mumbled comment about being undeserving.

"Hm?" I nuzzled into him more.

"It's late. We should get cleaned up and go to bed," he said, pulling away just enough to look down at me and tuck some loose hairs behind my ear with another sigh.

The sighs were beginning to worry me, as I couldn't tell if they were contented or not.

Isn't your birthday coming up? An Itachi translator would be nice… just sayin'.

"Is… everything okay?" I asked, hoping I was being paranoid. But I had seen a glimpse of sadness in Itachi just then and that, in tandem with the mysterious sighs, well I didn't like it, not one bit. That feeling of dread was only exacerbated by the ensuing silence.

"Itachi?" I prompted again, trying to tug out of his grip but he pulled me against him tighter, my face buried in his chest once more. The way he held me there, pressing his lips to the top of my head, it reminded me of something... reminded me of the way he had looked at me earlier, like I might just wisp away at any moment. How could I show him I wasn't going anywhere? I'd already given him all of me after all. My teeth set to chewing on my lip as I recalled it in vivid detail.

"Yes. My apologies, just thinking." He said blankly and I could tell his thoughts were elsewhere. He loosened his hold.

"Thinking about…?" I pressed.

"About getting ready for bed. What do you say?"

"I say you're a bad liar," I tutted.

"Not at all. I have a very stringent bedtime routine that requires a great deal of thought."

There he is.

"Oh does it now? Well I'm very curious to find out what it entails then."

We were being playful again and I allowed myself an internal sigh of relief to squash the pit that had taken root in my stomach. As far as bedtime routines go, I imagined it wasn't his usual. He was astonishingly sweet with me, carrying me to the bathroom, making sure the water was warm before he helped me into the shower despite me being fully capable of doing it myself.

I had to assure him several times that I was okay as he repeatedly checked in with me using various rephrasings of "you're sure you're alright?" and "I haven't hurt you?", always with a touch of his hand resting very low on my belly, a concerned bowing of his brow. These questions came after he'd noticed the small, rust-colored rivulets flowing down from my thighs. It was no alarming shock of red, only faint ribbons, but enough to send him worrying nonetheless. Though there was a lingering soreness, it was one that I thought of fondly.

While I wanted for him to be at peace, there was admittedly a certain swell that I felt at being cared for. It was something I so rarely experienced that I didn't even feel childish when he quietly insisted on cleaning me, instead allowing it on the condition that I could do the same for him. He reluctantly agreed. We were both unusually quiet as we took turns washing each other thoroughly and carefully, and though we were naked and at times, even pressed against each other or kissing, I wouldn't have dared to call it sexual. It was vulnerable and intimate and there was a certain sense of shared catharsis, but it was not sexual, it was something beyond that.

As we readied ourselves for bed, his clothes fitting loose and comfy on my small frame, I couldn't take my eyes off Itachi, even through my yawns. If I thought I was enamoured with him before, then I didn't know what to call this.

Except you do…

Hush.

My heart leapt into my throat when he gestured, albeit hesitantly, for me to crawl into bed next to him. I didn't worry about nightmares as I lulled to sleep that night with my back pressed against Itachi, clutching his arm which draped over me. It was a good night, and we told each other such before drifting off.

A/N: Holy shit guys, if you made it through that whole thing I appreciate you.

One of my pet peeves is people writing virginity loss scenes where the chick is just like... immediately getting plowed lmao. So my characters may have been awkward and weird about it but I stand by it.

I'd actually really love feedback on this as my writing style is just kind of willy nilly writing exactly what I imagine in my dumb walnut brain so I think it probably doesn't really work too well for sex scenes? Idk, I've not written one before. I proofed it so many times that I have no concept of how it actually reads because I grew numb to it lol, so please let me know what you think. I'm very open to constructive criticism.

As always, thanks for reading my dears 3