They both flopped back on the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to regain their breath.

"Sesshoumaru...That was...Fucking kami, you're amazing..."

He gave her a sidelong glance, breath ragged. "You doubted this?"

She turned on her stomach to lay her head and arm on his chest, exhaling a sigh. "Maybe you should go by 'The Fucking Perfection.'" He raised that eyebrow at her.

"This One thought we had made love."

"We did." She began drawing on his chest with her fingers. "Just doesn't roll off the tongue as well."

"Hn."

"And for your first try, you really hit it out of the park." Another bullseye. He was the perpetual natural.

"What park?"

"It's a saying from my time. It means you were perfect." he put his arm around her.

"I could not have done it without you." This got a laugh. 'Happy to help.'

"You would allow This One to hit it out of the park in the future?" Now she was really laughing.

"Sure, buddy. You can 'hit it' any time you want!" He didn't know what was so funny, but he let it go.

"Have you thought on coming to my lands?" She paused.

"It is a very attractive offer, Sesshoumaru. I'm just not certain yet. I always thought I would return to the future when the jewel was completed. But now...I don't know. I need to talk to my mom first."

"And your father?" he prodded. She never mentioned him. Though she never spoke to him at length about her family.

"Wish I could. He died when I was a kid." A house in the neighborhood had caught fire with a small boy trapped inside. Mr. Higurashi made it out with him in time, but the smoke inhalation did him in.

"My apologies."

"That's okay. You didn't know." She hated how uncomfortable the news made most people. It was a long time ago, and didn't really affect her anymore.

"It's actually nice to think about him. I stopped asking Mama to tell me stories, I can tell it upsets her. I think she still really misses him." She smiled sadly. "That is something Inuyasha and I have in common. My father was a great man, and I never got to know him." She looked up at him, but Sesshoumaru was watching the ceiling as she spoke.

"I wish I could have known him. I at least wish I had someone who knew him well, who could tell me about him." Her hinting was obvious.

"I have a friend, Eri. Her dad is kind of a deadbeat. He comes around every once in a while, to try to make nice, but he always ends up leaving again. We got in a fight once because she was complaining about him being a jerk. I got mad. I told her she should be happy she at least gets to see him once in a while. She told me that she would much rather have a hero for a father who was dead, then a low life who only came around to borrow money and break hearts. I guess the grass is always greener..."

He was silent a moment after she finished. Then,

"What if your father was not as great a man as everyone thought?" He sounded far away.

"Huh?"

"Have you ever considered that perhaps your mother told you that you had a hero father for your own benefit? So that you might strive to live up to him?" He took her silence as permission to continue. "You were never going to know him anyhow, so maybe she allowed him to be a hero in your eyes, while he was in reality a... jerk." He was threading his fingers through her hair, lightly rubbing her scalp with his claws. She looked over to see him still looking upward.

She assumed they were no longer talking about her father, still she offered, "I hadn't considered that. It would explain why Mama got so upset when I would bring him up. Maybe she didn't like protecting him so much...still, I think I'd rather know the truth. If he really wasn't that great a man, at least it would be easier to let him go, instead of longing for the hero I would never know."

He looked down at her a moment, then back up, "Perhaps."

"I at least wish Mama had remarried. Every kid needs a father figure." She was watching him again. "You're a pretty great guy, Sesshoumaru. Rin is lucky to have you taking care of her."

"Hn."

"But who takes care of you?" He scoffed.

"This Sesshoumaru has no need for such."

"I know you don't. But maybe you would like it anyway." She started placing open mouth kisses on his chest, causing a pleased rumble to reverberate as he closed his eyes. She then got up on her knees to kiss her way down his tight abdomen. His hand was still in her hair as she nipped around his navel. But when her tongue sneaked out to lick the head of his engorged member, he stopped her descent by pulling her hair into his fist gently.

"Miko, what are you doing?"

"Taking care of you...Don't you want me to?"

The red was back in his eyes. "No male with an ounce of self-preservation would allow a demon bitch to take him in her mouth. It would give her too much power. Leverage to demand anything she wants from him."

"Well, lucky for you, I'm not a demon bitch. I'm a human bitch," she joked.

He knew she was human. He wasn't trying to ignore this. His reaction was more out of habit. Of years of knowing this truth and living by these rules. Still, he hesitated. Seeing his obvious discomfort, she added, "Sesshoumaru, I doubt my puny human teeth could cause you much harm. But even if they could, I would never do that. Don't you trust me?"

He did. He had proved as much earlier when he took her at her word as he climaxed inside her. At this realization, he slowly released her hair. Besides, it wasn't as if she couldn't just purify him in a second if she wanted to.

As he closed his eyes and lay back down, she took him in her mouth. She wasn't sure what shocked her more: her name slipping past his lips, or the profanity that preceded it. Both delighted her, and she began her task of bobbing up and down on his cock.

Running her tongue around the tip, she took extra time to suck on the head, before wrapping her lips around him tighter and taking him as far in as he would go. The reiki in her saliva that was coating his cock crackled gloriously as his youki rushed to his defense. She made sure to let him feel the back of her throat, and would remove him only to lave her tongue up and down to the base. She stuck it in her cheek and used her hand to rub the parts she couldn't fit in; salivating as much as she could to give him a nice, wet sensation.

The sounds he made were sinful, right down to his breathing. He seemed to be caught somewhere between pleasure and incredulity. "Mmm," she mumbled around him, causing his eyes to force open at the vibration.

As he watched her, he conceded that in this moment, she was the most powerful being in all Japan. But not because she threatened him. She could simply ask anything of him, and right now, he would do it. Because he would want to. He wanted to give her everything she wanted from him. She need only voice her desire, and he would make it happen.

But she wouldn't ask for anything. She just kept sliding her tongue and lips around him until the delightful pressure threatened to end him. "Ka-gome...you...I'm going to..." he fumbled out, and lightly grabbed her hair once again to lift her off of him. But she would have none of it. Instead, she grabbed his striped wrist and pumped her head even faster. This was the Lord of the West, and he'd never had a blowjob. Damned if she wasn't going to do this all the way.

She slowed her pace as she felt the warm liquid spurt into her mouth, and kept sucking until he was done. When his hips finished jerking upward and he groaned his completion, she withdrew from his lap and swallowed what she had taken from him. He pulled her to his chest and held her while his heartbeat evened out, panting hard.

His heart was strong and roared against her ear, and when she finally looked up at him, she was floored by the wild look in his eyes.

This demon was power. It was palpable as it boiled beneath the surface. Like the Shikon, he could be used to bring unfathomable death and destruction, or fulfill desires under the influence of her pure touch.

But unlike the Shikon, he needed no protection; no keeper. She needn't sacrifice her happiness to defeat any who wished to control him. Quite the opposite.

He was freedom.

He took her face in his hands and kissed her, slowly and thoroughly. The taste of himself was a pleasing reminder of what she had done for him. When he released her head to reclaim its spot on his chest, he put his arm around her and confessed,

"You know, you just might be my favorite person."

She laughed.

A/N: I'm really excited about the next one. I think you guys are gonna like it!