November is apparently sos month and this was my contribution, but it got too spicy for reblogs. Enjoy as you may.
Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. Yup.
Very little could entice him to leave sanctity of his hotel room when he could state to the minute when the taxi would arrive to relay him to his flight, but as Sasori looked down on the patio where a party atmosphere was attempting to be in progress he saw something interesting. There was one woman with pink hair and a red shift dress that did not look vacationing tourist appropriate and she was somehow generating a sort of obvious and exaggerated bubble of personal space that every circulating server and fellow poolside resident respected. It was only broached when she hailed a server who would wobble into her vicinity with a tray and then quickly dart back having delivered her another cocktail. She appeared to examine the little drink umbrella with a twirl of her fingers before stabbing it into the wooden tabletop. Given the flimsy nature of the toothpick and the average density of wood, this implied that she was using a rather impressive amount of precise force.
Seemingly due to an intense desire to appeal to the heavens for patience she turned her face up and took a steadying breath. Time hung. From his position above her, Sasori felt something shift irregularly in the vicinity of his chest only to discover that his heartbeat was accelerated. It seemed his goals for the evening had suffered a tectonic shift.
Sasori dug out a red Hawaiian shirt with flowers on it from a meticulously packed suitcase and a pair of linen pants before he inevitably headed down to discover what made this woman so fearsome to both complete strangers and people who were professionally cheerful. When he finally arrived poolside and saw the sneer she wore just as attractively as her red dress he felt magnetically drawn to her, even as the gears in his mind churned. No part of this felt wholly voluntary on his part, but he wasn't alarmed. He had the situation under control.
Navy pumps were discarded under the stool and her bare feet lightly kicked against the table base while she checked her phone. The red shift dress was dark crimson under her arms where she was obviously sweating in the unbreathable fabric. It was like she had walked straight from some air-conditioned corporate office and on to a plane to paradise. Or someone's idea of paradise, anyway. Sasori felt like everything about the strip of hotels full of people plopped next to beaches was offensive to the concept of 'getting away from it all'.
"I'd offer to buy you a drink, but you seem to have the situation handled." Running a hand through his hair as he sat down across from the woman, he slipped on an affable personality like an ill-fitting shoe. He could manage it for a time, but if he had to do it for too long it was always unsuccessful. People could practically smell his disgust for them through the veneer of civility.
Not even looking up from her phone, the woman seemed to startle as her green eyes focused in on him for a fraction of a second. "I can already tell you think pretty highly of yourself, and it looks like you take good care of your skin, so unless you want a puncture wound in it via drink umbrella you'll pick that pretty face of yours up and mosey on over to some woman who gives a shit."
Her brashness normally would have grated, but Sasori found himself not only charmed but even less likely to leave her alone than before. Was he really so forgettable? His pride pricked at his thumbs. "Perhaps a little blood would be worth the company."
Eyebrows lifting in surprise, her sour expression broke as she chuckled and put her phone face down on the table and really looked at him. With a sigh, she tilted her head and waved a hand as she struggled with a quizzical expression that told him she was close to an epiphany. "Ok, so that was bitchy of me, but honestly I don't want to be hit on right now. I'm not here for that and if you're looking for an easy lay, you'd better go elsewhere."
"The only stimulation I'm looking for is intellectual," Sasori lied smoothly, shocked in a way that it was in fact a falsehood. Most of the people in his acquaintance had dubbed him asexual long ago, and while he had mentally agreed with the assessment at the time he hadn't let on. It didn't do to let one's associates make assumptions, regardless of accuracy. This woman was proving a strange attractor more so than the last time he saw her. "Are you opposed to conversation?"
The woman faltered. She didn't really want him here, but he was putting up his best genial front and after years of practice he knew it worked. His ability to be both forgettable and non-threatening were part of his overall calculated tactic of keeping himself off person of interest lists despite his Akasuna surname. His family cast a long shadow. Really, it wasn't hard to read her body language when she decided to let him stay. Sasori was almost disappointed she hadn't fought him a bit harder.
"Sakura." She conceded and leaned back in her chair while pulling her drink closer.
He was glad she hadn't offered her hand; he wouldn't have shaken it. "No last name?"
"At this rate I should just give you my damn business card." Came the slightly salty reply, then she grimaced. "Sorry, I'm not in the best mood and perhaps I had a few more of whatever this is than I meant to. I just wasn't ready to head back to the room to watch TV and fall asleep."
"Sasori." He supplied flatly and he watched as she fit the last piece into place and struggled to compose herself. She and Temari had seemed close that first time he had spied her across the room at that family party that he had attended only because he had expressly been told it was a memorial for that damned old bat. Ebizo wasn't to be trusted, but at the same time his uncle hadn't tended to display a history of eager cooperation for Granny Chiyo's bad jokes.
What had been casual appraisal from his table partner shuttered in a way that might have discouraged a lesser man. Oh yes, Temari had shared just enough to make Sakura cautious. More's the pity. Best to play the game as if the goal post hadn't been yanked back out of sight.
"I don't suppose you're Sasori Akasuna,"
He wanted to dissemble and say something gentlemanly like she had him at a disadvantage but in reality he knew far too much about this woman for his liking. He knew she was a damn fine doctor, maybe not a genius of his level but a quick enough study to stand toe to toe with most, and that she had been making a foray into administration while her mentor groomed her for future directorship. It partially explained the outfit, but Sakura still held mysteries Sasori wanted to dissect from those narrowed green eyes.
Honestly, Sasori had assumed he would never see her again after that party. If he were the romantic sort, he might think fate had a hand in this meeting but the only thing that had brought him here geographically was a tip that a certain defected naval officer for a particularly vindictive foreign nation was hiding in plain sight. At this point Sasori was reasonably sure that the body would be on the same outgoing plane as him, and that by the time they both disembarked the toxicology on the corpse would be inconclusive. It had been a job well done.
"I pride myself on my memory, Sakura, but I can't place where I should know you from. I don't suppose you're one for auctions?" Seed the next topic. Keep the conversation away from family, from money.
"Houses? Cars? Livestock?" She said the last with a curl of amusement at her lips and Sasori wished he could move his chair closer and trace it with a fingernail. A part of him knew that his reaction to Sakura was unnatural, which is why he had scrupulously stayed far away at that party even if he couldn't bring himself to leave back then either. Without the buffer of his rotten blood relations he couldn't maintain disinterest.
"Art. Antiques mostly. I travel to galleries occasionally to examine new works that strike me as possibly important."
"I think I still have posters from college rolled up and stuck in the back of my closet? And my best friend Ino keeps somehow convincing me to buy things from her husband, so I'm pretty sure I have a small stack of framed black and white portraits of mutual friends that I should either finally nail up or give away…" Sakura seemed to be back at home mentally, barriers momentarily lapsed as she travelled her home in her mind and touched each forgotten project. The detritus of a life too busy to be lived in her apartment. "If your house is anything like Gaara's then I imagine you have a lot of rooms to fill."
On a first name basis with all his cousins? That rankled in a way that her association with Temari hadn't.
"If you were really moved by it you would have made it a priority to display it somewhere that inspired you."
Sakura huffed a laugh and sucked the watery liquid from the bottom of her cup until the straw made a noise that should be criminalized. "Inspiration, huh? I don't need inspiration to do well at my job. Being a doctor was my literal calling since I knew how to spell it. My parents thought I would grow out of it when I realized how hard and bloody a road it would be, I guess I surprised everyone."
The conversation lapsed into natural silence and Sasori calmly calculated that even if he rushed up to his room to grab his suitcase and valiantly ignored its state of disarray, he would still miss his pick-up time by a few minutes. The ride service would probably wait, even though any number that was left with them would have been Deidara's.
Sakura moved an errant strand of hair behind her ear when a gust of wind promptly undid her good work as she softly cursed in a tone she probably thought was low enough not to be heard. Sasori felt unnaturally in tune with everything she did. "I know it's early, but I could use some dinner." She checked her phone once more with a drawn brow and then said with some unexpected force in her tone. "Would you like to join me?"
If he missed that car and the accompanying flight Deidara would be blowing up his phone like the pest he was. Handler indeed, as if Sasori needed observation to perform his work. A middleman to obscure his location and contact information was convenient right up until the point where Sasori and Deidara's goals fell out of alignment.
"Absolutely." Sasori said without hesitation.
Sakura knew she could have been a little more up front about the whole thing, but there was a certain sadistic charm to watching Temari's infamously reclusive cousin stare a smiling server right in the eye and tell them not to come back after they asked him if it was his first time on the island. The luau tickets had been purchased ages ago as part of a package deal for this vacation and she had figured she wouldn't bother to go and sit alone at a table like the sad sack she was, but dragging a reluctant victim to said luau was actually fantastic fun compared to eating takeout in her hotel room alone. Sasori clearly hated this kitschy tourist garbage, and he was eyeing the buffet with the same wariness Sakura was so the odds that either of them would be eating that were slim. The public health worker in her heart just couldn't look at a sneeze guard over anything edible as real protection from other people's germs.
Picking up the slim specialty menu in the center of the table, Sakura arched her back in different positions to try to get it to crack as she read through the a la carte offerings. "Never knew a hamburger with a slice of pineapple on it could cost that much."
"Dry, room temperature pork not to your taste?" Sasori gestured over to the buffet and Sakura rolled her eyes hard enough that she felt a muscle in her face tweak.
There was no way Sakura would have ever agreed to play poker with this man. Not a single body movement appeared to be wasted. There was no nervous tic, no impatient tapping, not even a sense of wandering attention. And yet, while that laser focus was directed on a single task at a time, she also saw how he subtly bent his body away when a server got too near. Sasori was aware of his surroundings even as he waited for her response to his rhetorical question.
Dangerous. Temari had said.
A fucking creeper. Kankuro had chimed in.
Not my favorite cousin. Gaara had reluctantly supplied.
Our only cousin. Temari had shot in quickly with a smile.
Glimpses of the man across a room ages ago had only provided a flash of red hair and a hint of a frown, while up close he was like a perfume model: pensive, handsome as if air brushed, and pinning her down with direct eye contact. Sakura's relatively recent breakup with Sasuke should have made her immune to the charms of the rich and self-absorbed. Apparently not.
"If I didn't mistrust myself so much, I would continue to drink my dinner. I think I'm carrying too much stress not to have that backfire on me." She should have gone up to her room to change, her dress was made for air-conditioned offices, not humidity and ocean breezes. But smeared makeup and pit stains hadn't scared the man away yet, so maybe this Sasori was less fussy than his cousins had led Sakura to believe. "Anything you'd recommend?"
Setting down the menu, Sasori gave her a look that caused a chill to pinball its way across her back. "Nothing on this menu whets my appetite."
Was he flirting with her? After years with Sasuke, the coldest of fish, would she even know what that should feel like? It should have been like riding a bike, but with Sasori she definitely felt like she was in more unicycle territory. There was a certain familiarity and a knowledge of how it should go, but actually doing the thing… best to operate as if there was no agenda behind her words.
"Well, I need to eat something and if I really wanted a communicable disease I would be more likely to kiss a stranger than eat that food over there so I suppose I'll just point at something randomly and that's what I'll order." As she landed a lacquered nail solidly on something that promised to be a surf and turf taste sensation with about 15 ingredients listed, so she let her finger slide down to chicken katsu instead. Sasori watched her with amusement, rightly snorting derision over the bravado that quickly folded to conservatism. Irritated, she tried to tamp down a spike in temper. "Look, it was a long flight and on a stomach full of fruit juice and alcohol I'm not getting adventurous."
It was partially a lie, sitting down with Sasori was already more adventure than she had bargained for when she had stuffed a suitcase at the last moment and practically sprinted through the airport in her work heels to catch that flight. Sakura hadn't planned on coming but, damn it, she had requested this PTO a year ago, paid for the trip six months ago, and then broke up with one of the ticket holders roughly a month and a half ago. She wasn't going to be a sad sack on her birthday like everyone expected her to be. It was time to show people that Sakura Haruno wasn't held down by anything like regret.
There was also the fact that she hadn't really expected Sasori to actually say yes to dinner.
"Can't I entice you to eat something? It's awkward to have dinner with someone who isn't eating." His habit she had noted of staring at her without blinking was starting to make Sakura self-conscious. Maybe his intensity was simply read poorly by others. This wasn't someone Sakura could reconcile as 'more apathetic than an emo teen' or 'probably on a first name basis with the devil' which was what Kankuro had muttered about Sasori at that long-ago party before the topic had shifted to how work was going.
"Since you offered, I'll accept. Entice me, Sakura." The delivery seemed friendly enough, as he leaned back in his chair and graciously gestured to the menu he had discarded, but Sakura felt like she was missing something again. He had said he just wanted some intellectual stimulation and nothing else, hadn't he?
Blinking hard, Sakura wasn't sure how to answer so she laughed to cover her flustered confusion. "Then I think you should eat the same thing I do. That way we can compare notes on consistency and flavor. Plus, then I don't have to spend another second trying to read this thing and guessing at your preferences. I'm unlikely to guess right as I don't know you that well, and I don't value wasting time on things I can't control."
Somehow that earned Sakura what seemed like a genuine smile from the man across the table. That was a smile that threatened to break ice flows running through her lizard brain in regards to the opposite sex. Ino's shot across the bow through text before takeoff that her wild time in the tropics was probably going to consist of hiking and museums had also gotten her thinking, as did when her friend Tenten told her that what she needed was someone to rebound off of. No one could be more different from Sasuke, the perfect federal officer, than someone who spent their whole life chasing fancy decorations for their house.
Maybe she shouldn't have stopped drinking those watered-down cocktails so hastily. Would it be too pitiful if she consulted the internet quickly on 'how to subtly proposition an acquaintance'?
Never mind, the idea was half baked, she should just eat some food and forget about it.
"While we wait, why don't you tell me more about what art pieces you bought recently. I don't know anything about art, but that means you have first shot at influencing my opinions about it." She tried to relax her shoulders, rolling them back as she took a deep drink of water. Dabbing a napkin surreptitiously against her collarbone where the condensation had dripped down off the glass, she watched as Sasori took a deep breath, eyes dilated. He sure liked art.
"You certainly know the ways to a man's heart, Sakura."
Unable to stop the bad joke, she was already smacking herself in the forehead before the sentence finished. "From my perspective, it's through the chest wall."
Politely, Sasori ignored her comment and started to say something about the enduring elegance of certain kinds of ceramic and glass art when he was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a fire eater on a central stage slightly below them. The floor show must be starting, Sakura thought before she turned back to face Sasori. There was a look on his face that chilled her as a burst of fire illuminated him like a flash bulb.
Who was the real Sasori? He was a different person every time she thought she was getting a bead on him. Reaching out, Sakura grabbed his hand and she could see the whites of his eyes as the next burst of fire put them into relief again. Maybe this was stressing him out. Immediately, her brain pivoted to the first thing that had occurred to her when stepping off the plane but with a twist to it.
"We don't have to stick around for this. Let's get some food to go and watch TV in my room. It's less sad when I have company right? That way we can talk, too."
Another burst of light made Sakura suddenly self-conscious of her hand on his, particularly since Sasori was staring at their connection, so she pulled away. As soon as she released him, his attention snapped back up to her face.
"Yes." He bit out, almost angrily to her ears, but maybe he was just trying to be heard over the clapping of the other luau guests. "Let's do that."
The feeling that Sakura tried to identify currently streaking across her senses was not relief.
He was in her room. He was in her room and she was presumably in the bathroom changing her clothes into something less synthetic. The smell of fried chicken cutlet was unavoidable, which certainly broke the idea that this was a seduction down from likely to simply possible. At no point when he had had to isolate a target using sexuality had fried foods been a draw, but then he wasn't well versed in that world beyond what had been necessary. Sasori knew he had a certain appeal due to good genetics, high symmetry, and life habits that promoted keeping every aspect of his body in the best possible condition. His body fat was always kept at around ten percent with rigorous exercise and meticulous eating habits, and Sakura wasn't wrong in her earlier assumptions of a particular skin care regime. Hydration was also important.
The shower started up and Sasori's heart felt like it wanted to leap out of his throat. Ludicrous. Weak. Unacceptable. The phenomenon known as 'love at first sight' was just a chemical coincidence, and if nothing else Sasori was a true expert on human biology and chemistry both with fancy degrees to prove it from prestigious schools. He could probably buy or create some sort of inhibitor to prevent this localized form of insanity from complicating his life in the future.
Then Sakura emerged with damp hair and bare feet in a pastel blue sun dress that hugged her hips and accentuated the curve of her bust and he choked on his own spit.
"Doing ok there?" She asked with no real concern in her voice. Snapping open the containers to display the contents and setting out plastic silverware on the tiny in room table, she pulled out a chair for herself and started to eat. "Sorry for the wait, I didn't feel presentable the way I was. Didn't seem like anyone else out here was dressed for a boardroom."
Pushing the unappetizing combination of sweet gelatinous goo and shiny fried food around, Sasori took a couple bites of white rice to at least put up a front. It was wet and overcooked, but Sakura seemed happy with her meal so he stifled his observation. Inferior food, surely, but in her presence it was made tolerable? Another sign that clearly whatever this feeling was, it was akin to a lobotomy.
What were social niceties to him? Sakura Haruno was no one. He could stand up and walk out of this room. After waving a credit card around he'd be on a flight to whatever obscure location he was expected at to cleanly murder some anonymous political opposition to whatever regime had handed Deidara the most money this week. He didn't need to be here right now.
"I don't believe in something so silly as fate, but I do think it's quite the coincidence that I happened to bump into anyone I even vaguely knew. In a parallel universe maybe I came with my ex after all, and I never would have known you were here." A smear of sauce at the corner of Sakura's mouth was captured by her agile pink tongue and Sasori was suddenly aware that there was no way he was standing up in this condition let alone walking away. "I'm so happy we met, is all I meant. I think you were telling me something about performance art before…?"
Yes. Words. Any words. Distractions. "It's a contradiction in terms," he ground out and forced himself to concentrate on the curtains just past her face. The longer he stared at her the more intense the feeling became that he should overturn the table and pounce on her. "Its very immediacy and topicality means that the deepest impact it could have is fire a few neurons in random spectators. It's like watching a firework explode. Noisy, no value, no substance. If you can't practice it, repeat it, then how can you perfect it?"
"So art has to be perfect?"
"What's the point in practicing something if the goal is merely good enough? Is that the kind of mentality you go into when treating a patient?"
That lit a fire in her, he saw, and the uncomfortable pressure he was trying to suppress redoubled.
"Art and saving lives can't be compared."
Sasori felt heat in his words that had nothing to do with the desire he was attempting to ignore. "You're right in one respect. Art is vastly more important."
The plastic fork snapped in Sakura's grasp as she tried to take a breath to calm herself before she spoke again. He knew he was needling her, but he wanted her to be as out of control as he felt. Now to twist the knife.
"I think it could be argued that art existed before systematic medical knowledge. And art, in various forms, has outlived most medical theories and practices."
She wasn't exploding, but she was turning a shade of red that clashed horrendously with her pink hair. Eagerly, Sasori continued.
"Perhaps there is a certain artistry to how a surgeon works on and within a body, but—"
"What about plastic surgery?" Sakura interrupted, and Sasori paused in his gleeful attempt to get his dinner partner to rage at him. "You seem to like sculpture, and isn't that what plastic surgery is at its core? Some terrible combination of aesthetic and medical science?"
Having a conversation with Sakura was somehow even more intoxicating than the few times he had tried illicit substances out of curiosity or boredom. Sasori wanted to pursue this line of thinking about where medicine met art because he had always come to certain conclusions before and made the same arguments in his head, but actually talking to another person created a variability to the responses that didn't fill him with impatience.
It was dark outside by the time Sakura stood up from the uncomfortable little table set to stretch and throw away the last of her uneaten rice. She didn't comment on Sasori's lack of appetite, she simply gave him a sly grin over her shoulder as she opened up the door to her miniscule balcony. The ocean was past another block of tiny hotel rooms, but you could hear and smell it even at this distance. The painfully white street lights below provided a bit of haze, backlighting Sakura in a way that provided a view of her body through her dress and reminded Sasori again why being here with her was risking his sanity.
"How long will you be staying?" She asked from outside, her back still to him.
Pulling his phone out from his pocket, he swept his thumb in a complex pattern to unlock the screen and calmly surveyed the missed call number in high double digits all from one person. There were a handful of text messages as well, most of them featuring swear words. Deidara relied on gifs and emojis for half of his conversations and Sasori was glad he had unlimited data once strings of rude responses loaded.
Get a flight for Friday. First class or else. He tapped out, then shut it off again.
"A few days." As if drawn by an invisible string, Sasori found himself stalking towards the balcony but a hand against his chest stopped him at the threshold as Sakura sensed his proximity at the last moment and startled. Her index finger met the vee of skin where his collar dipped down to the top button of his shirt and that attraction which had been bubbling under his skin finally demanded he take action.
Finally. Sakura could feel the tension in Sasori's arms as he drew her in closer and leaned down to capture her lips in a kiss that was far more tentative than she would have expected from someone so forceful in every other facet of life. Other than literally taking off her dress in front of him she wasn't sure how else to make it clear she wanted to do more than have a lively conversation with the man.
Then again, she hadn't exactly spelled it out for him in words, but he seemed perceptive. Honestly, she should have been able to come right out and ask Sasori if he wanted to have sex, but something inside of her balked. It was probably because that was the only way, towards the end, that Sasuke knew she wanted intimacy and it melted down her pride into a sad puddle to think about asking this person here and now for the same thing in the same way.
Sasori and Sasuke were not the same person, however, evidenced by the desperate pressure of a firm body against hers and the way Sasori's breathing turned ragged as he pulled them back into the low light of the room before circumventing her and quickly closing the balcony door and curtains. The stare he gave to her from mere feet away made her want to back away, but she made herself take a step closer instead. Slowly unbuttoning his shirt, she chuckled internally at how this was the only birthday present she'd be unwrapping this trip. It was a puddle on the floor soon enough, and Sakura found herself running her nail over the outline of a tattoo on his pectoral.
"Scorpian? I didn't think you were the type."
"What could you possibly know." It wasn't said with malice, only arrogance.
It was easy enough to shut him up when she ran that same finger against the inner band of his linen pants only to watch with glee as his honey brown eyes rolled back in his head. Sakura pulled Sasori by the front of said pants until the back of her knees met the bed behind them. From her newly seated position, she leaned back on her elbows and cocked an eyebrow up at her partner.
"STDs?" She asked, before this continued to its inevitable conclusion.
Sasori shook his head. "Birth control?" He countered, and Sakura nodded her assent.
Inching her dress up over her body, she lost view of Sasori only long enough to miss when he undid the drawstring to his pants. As Sakura unlatched her bra she watched, fascinated, as his erection sprang free when he eliminated pants and underwear simultaneously. He was clothed in not a spec of shame, and she supposed if she had a body that well curated she would feel the same. Mostly, she was aware of how she wasn't as luscious as some women, but that insecurity was born of sensual neglect from a partner that hadn't valued her. The desire writ plainly all over Sasori was already doing a lot to heal those wounds.
Joining her on the bed, listening to the creak of the frame in the otherwise quiet room, Sasori kissed a path from ankle to thigh before he pulled her underwear down her legs. His hands were smooth as they traced lines of tendons while he made profane patterns with his tongue up her body until they were kissing once more. This careful worship isn't what she needed though, and Sakura surged forward to invade his mouth with a probing tongue while she hooked a leg over his thigh and rocked into him.
Leaning back only long enough to line up his cock with the length of her damp opening, she felt him suddenly bite down on her tongue when she slid over him and then quickly trapped him at the top of her thighs. Sasori let go of her tongue and leaned back to gulp in air.
"Too much? Should we stop?" He seemed like he was somewhere between pleasure and pain and they hadn't even done all that much.
His eyes were screwed shut for a moment, pulse racing under her fingers, but as he seemed to get control of his breathing again a slow smile transformed him. Suddenly he was a different person, snapping into action rather than letting her take the lead. Pushing her leg up and to the side, he swiftly entered her and Sakura hissed out a controlled breath as she stretched to accommodate. It was a sensation both familiar and foreign; she had had plenty of sex before but this time there was no sense of either expectation or obligation. Maybe, this time, she was just allowed to enjoy herself with this man and not overthink anything.
Freedom was a better aphrodisiac than anticipated.
It didn't take long to work up a sweat in the warm evening air and as she wondered at the feeling of skin sliding, the tension inside her began to coil. When she shifted their position just so, Sasori began to hit a spot that felt like it was pushing her to a cliff's edge and far too quickly she was clenching around him with a cry. He stilled, seemingly surprised as she gripped him so tightly with her fingers she saw red marks on his unblemished skin while she felt her tremors fade.
"I can keep going," She assured him, even though she was sensitive. Without the frantic race to orgasm clouding her she was cogent enough to see what she could do to push him towards his own release. Bites against his collarbone didn't change his pace, but drawing the edge of her nail right next to his spine had him gasping into her ear with wordless pleas.
His body jerked against her and automatically her legs wrapped around him and squeezed as she made sure to swallow his every gasp until he went still.
It was too hot in the room now, humidity ramped up past the point of tolerability, so Sakura rolled away to find the remote control for the air conditioner and turn it on. The cool breeze chilled her wet skin immediately, but she was grateful for it because she could feel an awkward flush move from her face down. On a whim, she tentatively brushed back a strand of soft red hair that had fallen into his eyes, and the penetrating stare Sasori gave her as she did it was somehow more intimate than what they had just finished doing. That stare felt like it was weighing her soul.
"It occurred to me now I should have asked if you're seeing someone. I'm not the kind of person who does this." Was she saying it to reassure herself? Evidence that she was indeed that kind of person was all over the sheets.
"What do you think?" Finally sitting up from his supine position, he waited patiently for Sakura's assessment. Always waiting to act as judge and jury of her words, instead of being intimidated Sakura enjoyed how carefully he listened to her.
Laughing, she wondered if he was always going to be trying to get her to dance to his tune. "I think that you could quote me a whole ethics book, but that—"
"I'm not seeing anyone." He cut her off and the joke Sakura was making died on her lips as she shut her mouth with a snap of teeth.
That wasn't entirely expected. Neither were the goosebumps that his words had sparked. After indicating that she was going to take another shower, Sakura emerged to find that not only was Sasori still here, but he hadn't bothered to put on any clothing. As he got up to take his turn at the shower, he paused in front of Sakura and ghosted his fingers across her cheek without a word before putting on a grim smile and moving past her.
She swore she could hear her heart pounding in her ears as she turned on the television to distract herself. It would be a sunny day tomorrow, said the quick forecast before she flipped the channel to a crime drama mid-murder investigation. Should she text Ino? Somehow, bragging about this to any of her friends felt immediately like she was violating a sense of trust, however tentative or misplaced that feeling was.
"These programs are insultingly unrealistic." Sasori commented as he emerged with dripping hair. Wet, it was the dark red of fresh blood, and the way it was slicked down brought the planes of his face into relief. Had he ever gotten plastic surgery? Sakura couldn't guess what was natural and what might be fake if so.
"It's a fantasy. It isn't supposed to be realistic. If the good guys are going to catch the bad guys in less than an hour, with commercials, then they probably need a bit of magic or plot armor to help them."
Sasori huffed at her defense of the garbage on the screen and settled down next her to on the bed in only a towel with his eyes closed and one hand barely touching her leg. Seemingly about to take a short rest, Sakura couldn't help but trace her fingers over his back muscles absently. At first he tensed, then with a liquid sigh he appeared to fully relax next to her.
Sated, comfortable, Sakura finally felt like the decision she had made to get on that plane had been the right one.