Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who read and commented on this story on tumblr, FFN, and AO3. I received quite a few requests to provide an epilogue, which is to say that many of you wanted more details *ahem* about Rina (MC) and Mitsuhide's first night as lovers. To be honest, my rubber arm required very little twisting. Without more ado: the definitely M-rated conclusion to the original story.
~ Imp
Because the Night (Belongs to Lovers) ~ Epilogue
His bedroom was dark, but that didn't trouble him in the least. As sure-footed as if it were daylight, he carried me to his bed without hesitation, setting me across his lap—more or less—under a downy coverlet that was thicker and softer than the one he'd wrapped around me earlier, and just as luxurious. Who knew that Mitsuhide took care for his own comfort after all? For some reason, despite his status, I'd envisioned a basic futon, with a thin blanket that left its owner shivering on cold nights—on the rare occasions he actually slept properly, that is.
"You like fine materials, good to know," I blurted out, despite the way my body, and most of my mind, was reacting to his touch—to just being here, on these terms, with him.
Mitsuhide had been unpinning my hair—and taking obvious delight in watching, or sensing, the way I shivered with longing at nothing more than his warm breath on my ear. His fingers stilled briefly, and he gave a low, rather pleasant, chuckle.
"Were you imagining something thin, and bit musty?" He laid his cheek alongside mine, wrapping his arms tightly about me. In a low voice that thrummed against my skin, he murmured, "But I'm a practical man, my dear. That, and I think my servants are trying to entice me to sleep more. Why keep lovely things unused, after all? …And this is so much more appropriate for bedding a princess, don't you think?"
Somehow, every word was charged. His warm mouth nuzzled my neck, and one arm loosened enough for a hand to gently cup a breast, and then tease and pinch an already taut nipple into aching, near-painful sensation. I gasped, and squirmed, and tried to reach for him in return, but my arms were trapped at my sides.
His words are… possessive. His hands touch me as if to lay claim, even though he says I've already given myself over to him. The thoughts drifted through a haze of desire, and it took a few seconds to realize that he was unknotting and unwinding my obi, now—not as simple as it sounded, since the beautiful, intricate, aggravating thing tied in the back, and was close to four meters long. Untying a girl's obi must be one of those life skills for seductive spymasters. With the obi cord already on the floor somewhere, and the obi rapidly loosening its hold, my outer kimono was sliding off my shoulders, and the soft layers of my collar and under-kimono with it.
"I'm not a princess"—is what I wanted to say, but his lips and teeth were on my collarbone, and the hands removing the obi were becoming more and more attentive to my breasts—and who knew that strong, thin fingers through thin silk and cotton could be so hot and demanding? "Nnnngh—aaahhh—Mitsu-hide—Mitsuhide-sama…" But the use of the courtly honorific came out sounding adoring, rather than pointedly over-the-top.
"Yes, I understand," he told me soothingly, his pale hair and eyes glimmering in what little light there was. "But I will call you princess if I choose—my princess, who has come to my bed burning with longing, offering me her body to pleasure and be pleased by."
The obi was discarded, and cool air touched my skin as he finally parted the front of my kimono, along with the warm layers beneath. I heard a tiny hiss of indrawn breath that spoke of admiration and desire, and was pleased to realize that he wasn't quite as calm and collected as he seemed. When I shivered involuntarily—not from cold—he surprised me by pulling me up to him and kissing me, deeply and passionately, on the mouth. His hands held and caressed my naked body under the open kimono, while his lips and tongue claimed mine with all the need and emotion I could hope for. His words might still be knowing, and a little too smug, but his kiss held the promise of love, and I gave myself over to it recklessly, pouring all my love for him, all my want for him, into my response.
When our lips finally parted for longer than it took to draw in air, Mitsuhide pressed my head into the crook of his neck and rested his forehead against my crown. My blood was singing in my ears, and my body burned with wild need.
"I love you," I told him. "I love you so much."
His grip tightened almost painfully. Then my kimono was shoved roughly down off my shoulders, and stripped from my body, and I found myself being pressed back hard into the futon. Mitsuhide knelt across my hips, arousal evident, expression hidden by the darkness. The warmth and weight of his body just there was both tantalizing and frustrating, because it wasn't nearly enough to satisfy. When I reached up to him—my arms finally free of constraining sleeves—he grasped my wrists and licked at the soft inner skin, making me writhe under him, moaning.
"You have no instinct for self-preservation, do you?" he asked, removing his mouth from my wrists, and pinning them to either side of my head.
"I—want-nnnn—to—touch you—back!"
He smirked down at me, apparently enjoying my frustration. I wished I could see him better, but even in my hazy, emotion-and-lust-filled state, I could tell that he wasn't going to grant that wish—not this time, when he needed the darkness to take the edge off vulnerability.
"You want to touch me?" The hands holding my wrists shifted enough for him to bend down to kiss my brow—a misleadingly innocent gesture, since he was also grinding himself against my sensitized, quivering mound. "But I think that will have to wait until I've learned more about you…"
He drew my arms higher above my head, and then—like a conjurer, it seemed to me—he produced my obi cord and began to wind it about my crossed wrists. I stared up at him, surprise giving way to fascination and intense arousal, rather than the shock I would have expected from myself. I forced my voice to work, although it came out rough and needy.
"Are you—so scared—I'll run?"
Mitsuhide finished binding my wrists—his skill didn't surprise me—and let his hands sweep over my hair, across my cheeks, down the column of my throat, and onto my shoulders. He traced lines along my skin with slightly calloused fingers.
"Oh no, I'm quite sure you won't." His teeth flashed in brief, scimitar-like smile. "But I have wanted you for a long time, and this is the best way to ensure that you will let me have my way with you. That is—I don't want your naive sense of fair play to prevent me from taking my time with you, in a misguided desire to please me. This will remind you of what I really want."
He began to remove his clothing in an unhurried manner, while I lay there staring up at him, both entranced and confounded. My desire to touch him only grew stronger as he stripped, and I found myself licking at already-swollen lips at the sight of him. Lean, and sinewy, and muscled—or so I inferred from the shape and shadow of him, given the absence of light. I forgot my bound wrists long enough to try to reach up to run my hands over his body, and confirm what my eyes strained to make out, but the silk braid was indeed both a reminder and a deterrent.
"Who said I only wanted to touch you to be fair?!" I finally demanded, having regained enough mental acuity to form thoughts into words.
"I did." Mitsuhide looked down at me appreciatively, and began stroking and teasing the skin around my breasts and down onto my stomach. In moments, I was aching for more, lost to his sure touch on my skin, and the knowledge that we were both, finally, naked, and extremely willing.
"But I want to touch you for—nnngh—for me, not just for you!"
"How unfortunate for you then," my lover—my nemesis—purred, stretching out over me, and grinding himself against me. "But I don't want you distracting me like that just yet, when I have so much I want to do…"
He held my legs fast with his own, but shifted down along my body, hands tightening on hips and waist, until his mouth found one breast and began to suckle at one nipple, first gently and then more roughly. A hand caressed my side and then started to play with the other breast. My moans became cries—mostly formless, but also his name—when he finally abandoned teasing my breasts in order to focus lower, trailing kisses across my stomach, and lower still, to the sensitive, oh-so-sensitive place at the apex of my legs.
He explored me first with his fingers, stroking and caressing every wet, intimate fold, while his free hand kneaded one thigh, and my ass, and his mouth breathed warm, moist air on my lower abdomen. My heart—my nerve endings everywhere—felt about ready to explode. Several times, I found myself trying to reach down to at least grip his hair, or touch his cheek, only to be foiled by the damn cord around my wrists, which deterred me for reasons only partially to do with the way it constrained my movement.
"Well, my princess—my lover? Are you still with me?" Mitsuhide's voice was low and dark, but his words were very sweet.
"I—yes—I'm with you—nnnnnnngh—oh gods—Mitsuhide—"
His fingers slid in much deeper than before, making me moan, and then both his hands were gripping my hips, and his tongue and lips began to lave and massage my most sensitive, sensitized spot. I found myself trying to curl up around him, but he only tightened his hold, and buried his face further into me, and my whole body writhed with pleasure, while the muscles of my core thrummed an ever-increasing rhythm of need, seeking desperately for release.
Just as sensation began to blot out everything else, I thought I heard Mitsuhide curse, and then his hard member was suddenly hot within me, and his body was heavy on mine, joining in the wild rhythm of my climax. Oh gods, oh gods… His teeth bit down hard on my shoulder, and everything went incandescent.
"Oh fuck, Mitsuhide, fuck!" I was probably screaming, but I could barely hear it over the roaring of my blood as orgasm took me entirely, my hips bucking up into his with all the force I could muster.
Somehow, I clearly heard the ragged, improbable laugh that followed, and then, as this most controlled of men lost all control, a soft but intense string of words, like a prayer: "I—love you. I love you. Gods help us both… I love you."
[END]
...I wish them well. My work here is done...