This is actually one I really like, and I have absolutely no idea why lol. But maybe you like it, too!

A Kiss Where It Doesn't Hurt

"Ow, ow, ow, ow," Usagi yelped, bathwater sloshing a little around them, and Mamoru instantly gentled his touch with an apologetic flinch.

"Sorry," he murmured against her temple, meaning more than just his too firm fingers, and massaged the slick, knotted area with a softer touch. It wasn't easy - they were in a bathtub after all.

"S'okay," she mumbled sleepily and arched her back and shoulders back against his chest, damp hair slick along his arm and pecs.

They were rusty. He blamed it on that. It had been ages since they'd needed to transform, and this alien sprout of dark energy had just taken them off guard. It really shouldn't have been that difficult, shouldn't have taken them so long, and it definitely shouldn't have left them that battered.

Usagi's torso and limbs were covered in dark, purple blotches. The bad kind, not the love kind, and it had driven him nearly wild in anger and made him even sloppier. He blamed himself for half of these.

And so he'd whisked her out of there in his arms afterwards, carried her straight home, and poured a whole bottle of arnica bath oil straight into the tub and cradled her between his legs as he tried to smooth out all the kinks in her back.

"Maybe we're just getting too old for this shit," he grumbled at a stiff area between two purple bruises on her shoulder, kneading it carefully between his fingers.

She flinched again and he gentled his touch once more, but sighed and snuggled further back into him, her hands curled around both his knees that stuck out of the water just in front of hers.

"20 and 23 isn't old, Mamo-chan," she breathed, her voice a little strained. "That hurts," she added.

He pursed his lips and reduced his touch to mere strokes.

"Anywhere it doesn't hurt?" he asked frustratedly, glaring at her battered skin as if that did the job of fixing it miraculously.

He only heard her smile, didn't see it, but her sigh was of the smiling kind and she reached back and tugged on one of his hands, covering it with hers, and slipped it palm down across her chest.

"Here," she asserted with all the cheek in her voice, and he chuckled.

"Is that right?" he commented, his voice taking on that flirty air almost out of reflex and she nodded her head against his face and chest with a hum.

"Anywhere else that doesn't hurt?"

Her eyes were closed, her smile stretching across her lips, and she tilted her head to bare her throat.

"Lots of places," she said, and he chuckled even as he pressed his lips to the junction of her neck and trailed them up in soft, dragging kisses to that spot just behind her ear.

"If you say so," he breathed with his lips against her neck, and puckered them to press a more insistent kiss against her throat.

"Mmm-hmmm," she sighed. "I'll show you every one."

Setting Tag: Post-Stars