No, Robin commanded her body.

Get your shit together. We're not doing this. We're justifiably angry, remember? We're offended. We… we're…

Her body wasn't listening, anymore. It was honestly embarrassing how quickly her muscles relaxed, the moment he started touching her. She'd truly never had to contend with anything like this before: someone who could so easily strip her of all her control and composure. Her entire adult life, it had always been her on that side of things. She was the one bending others to her will, with touch, breath, gaze. And now… she was at a total loss for what to do or how to even begin to handle something like this.

She was in such a trance that she hadn't realized when or how, but at some point her standoffish, seemingly impenetrable posture had been completely decimated. Her arms, formerly firmly folded in rebellion, now completely relaxed on either side of her. Her legs, once practically locked together, had been entirely nudged apart, courtesy of Sanji's knee. Her eyes traveled downward, and there, around her left ankle, was a familiar piece of delicate black lace, dangling there, swaying every now and then with her subtle movements.

Her eyes slowly came back up and met his. He smiled at her as if he knew… as if he knew she'd freshly arrived from wherever her brain had just decided to go when it left her body.

Almost like a reflex, she leaned in, closed her eyes and–

"Oh," Sanji leaned back, putting on the most disgustingly innocent face he could conjure. "Did you… wanna kiss, or something?" He tilted his head, like a curious puppy, adding to the performance. "Can't really know for sure, on account of the whole… no-talking thing."

Her expression morphed from confusion, to shocking revelation, to absolute fury.

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

He looked so satisfied. So smug. So sure his cheeky little plan would work.

This was now far beyond her initial grievance. Robin was never going to open her mouth again. She'd die not talking if that's what it took to wipe that look off of his face.

Their stubbornness was yet another similarity neither of them had really known the full extent of, until now.

Sanji never expected her to capitulate on the first try; he was absolutely prepared for her silence, anticipating it, even. He honestly would have been surprised if it had been that easy. "Guess I'll just have to… see what I can do… in light of your… condition," his innocent demeanor never wavered as he let out a truly theatrical sigh.

Another development Robin hadn't noticed while she was in her trance was how high up on her thigh Sanji's right hand had become. Before she had the chance to process this new information, however…

One of his digits was already inside of her.

Everything was slow, but forceful, deliberate, punctuated. It seemed to be his signature.

Perhaps it was hubris, perhaps it was faith, perhaps it was just a little wishful thinking, but Robin was sure she could withstand this.

It was so very… calculated, what he was doing. He was giving her just enough, just enough to tease out a little desperation, not quite enough to give her relief. Just enough to make her melt in his hands, so he could build her up again, only to repeat the process. Again and again. A purgatory, of sorts.

… After a few minutes, she realized it was hubris.

She was dangerously close to letting words escape her. Surely she could still turn this around. Surely there was something she could do, just to get back on the board, at least. It was just… so difficult for her to think, in almost any and every capacity. She had no plan. She had no bright idea. She only had instincts, motions, reflexes. One of these instincts told her to try and slide back on the table; something, anything to try and temper the sheer intensity of what she was feeling, what he was doing to her.

She barely made it an inch.

"Oh," Sanji said, with the same innocent head tilt that worked so well for him the first time. "Going somewhere?"

Without waiting for an answer, he pulled her back to the edge of the table, left hand at the small of her back, and she was now even closer to him than she had been before, as if that was even possible.

"Didn't think so," his voice was low and calm in her ear, all of the "innocence" completely drained out of it. A peek behind the curtain, if you will.

A shiver ran up her spine, like an electric current from the spot where he'd pulled her in.

Sanji felt it, too, and it only reinforced his surety. She was immensely dedicated to her vow of silence, there was no disputing that, but her eyes… her eyes betrayed her. The desperation. The longing. The hunger.

He nearly had her.

His performance returned, and he sighed, so very forlorn. "Sure feels like there's something you want, Robin-chan. I'd love to help you out, I really would. It's just… too bad you can't talk, y'know?"

He cupped her cheek with his left hand, slowly running his thumb over her bottom lip. "I mean, what a tragedy."

His right hand hadn't stopped all this time, of course, but he decided to give her just a tiny bit more, just this once. A strategic play, to get her over the last threshold, right where he wanted her. "Downright Shakespearean."

The sound she made was music to his ears.

With labored breathing, she touched her forehead to his, eyes shut tight, gripping onto the lapel of his jacket, as if for her very life.

Her body was surrendering.

Don't you dare, her mind half commanded, half pleaded, a desperate Hail Mary. Don't you fucking dare give him what he–

"Motto." It was a whisper. The smallest, meekest, lightest whisper. The only form of speech she could bare to give up, in light of her humiliating defeat.

Robin would swear on her life that she saw an actual, literal glint in his one, ever-visible eye.

Sanji grinned. The smug, self-satisfied grin to end all grins. "There she is." The hand cupping her cheek slowly moved to the back of her head. "See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" He wouldn't make her answer that one. It was rhetorical, after all, and he wasn't, well, a monster. (He was just… a little stubborn. A little too used to getting his way. That's all.)

"Now…" Fingers laced through her hair, he firmly gripped the back of her head, a pressure and strength Robin was starting to get familiar with. Not anywhere near enough to hurt her, of course, (this was still Sanji, after all: everlasting protector of women, physically incapable of even getting the notion of harming one) just enough to show her that… well, he meant business.

His lips were at her ear, and the voice she'd previously caught a glimpse of, the one entirely devoid of innocence, of playfulness, returned. It was soft, yet somehow booming at the same time. Sanji was full of juxtapositions, it seemed.

This next one she'd have to answer.

"More what?"

More everything, really. Anything and everything he had, at levels and intensities higher than she could even conceive of; she wanted to take it all. Robin bit her lip, a subconscious reflex to stop herself from letting any of that out, not wanting to give him any more… satisfaction than he'd gotten from her already. He'd won quite enough for one day.

"Yubi." That infinitesimal whisper was still there, some small solace in the wake of her rout. She just barely let the word be heard, that way it was almost like she hadn't broken her vow of silence at all. Almost.

She didn't know how he was doing this. She didn't know when she'd gotten so weak. She didn't know what had happened to all of the things she was most known for: her strength, her poise, her control. She didn't know she was even capable of allowing herself to… melt like this. No, 'allowing' wasn't exactly the right word for it… It was no longer a matter of whether or not she would or could 'allow' anything. That option was long gone; she'd been pulled into a kind of vortex from which there was no escape, despite her mind's protestations.

Of course, Sanji knew she wanted quite a bit more than that. And while he was sure he could have gotten it out of her if he wanted to, he was perfectly content with his victory as it stood.

That self-satisfied smirk returned as he pulled away from her ear so he could study her face (she wouldn't look directly at him, but that was fine… for the moment). He was quickly discovering that he was developing an addiction: to her expressions, her eyes… to the way she looked at him in these exact kinds of moments.

Sanji was nothing if not eternally obedient and accommodating to the whims and wishes of women.

So…

He gave her precisely what she asked for.

And by the sounds of it, she was pretty happy about it.

In spite of how tempted he may have been by the prospect, Sanji wasn't going to make her ask for anything else. All of the intensity, the depth, the fervor that she so clearly wanted, he freely gave.

Considering how long he'd dragged all of this out, he shouldn't have been surprised by how quickly her expression started to shift, to something he was very familiar with from the night before (he'd spent the entire morning trying to permanently etch it into his mind…). The idea of seeing that again filled him with an intense anticipation that rapidly became too much for him to endure a second longer.

He placed his hand under her chin, drawing her eyes to his as he lifted her head with a sharp determination. Leaning in, he stopped just short of kissing her, and that same sharp determination was now in his voice as he spoke.

"Hora."

Like a switch had been flipped, it was instantaneous; Robin only saw blinding white; her eyes glazed over, peering into nothingness. She could hear nothing except a distant, persistent ringing in her ears. Despite this, she surmised she must have been making some sort of sound, as at some point she could feel his lips crash into hers, undoubtedly an effort to try and stifle whatever those sounds might have been. She could feel her body desperately wanting to fall backward as all of her muscles seemed to be shutting down, but a familiar soft, strong hand held her up. So she fell forward, instead: her head coming to rest in the crook of his neck, her hands releasing their grip on his hair, neck and shoulders as her arms grew limp and slowly drifted down the front of his jacket.

Sanji could still feel her shivering as he held her up with both hands, gently pressing his lips to her shoulder blade. He wondered idly if he'd waited too long to try and suppress the noises she'd been making. He honestly, truly, could not stop himself from looking at her, and it was something of a miracle he'd managed to break his gaze at all in order to do that. He supposed it was possible someone heard… maybe even likely. Actually, now that he thought about it, someone could have just walked right in at any time, they'd both forgotten to do something about that door. Hell, it was possible someone quiet enough just opened it, saw, and went right back out.

He could worry about all that later.

He didn't have the capacity for 'worry' at the moment.

A seal had been broken.

Ever since that day, in the many weeks following, Sanji's appetite, his newfound addiction, was insatiable. All he wanted to do was be near her, listen to her breathing, hear her voice, take in her scent, touch her, hold her… he couldn't get enough. A minute didn't go by where he wasn't thinking of her: what she might be doing, what she might think of this or that, memories, sensations, flashes. He couldn't keep his mind (or hands…) off her.

Luckily for him, Robin seemed to feel the same way.

They couldn't exactly keep Nami out of the girls' room all the time, so they'd resorted to using every single remotely hospitable place on the Sunny they could. The aquarium bar, the infirmary, the library, the crow's nest, even the goddamn lawn deck under the cover of night… they left no stone unturned in their seemingly never-ending quest to be together.

So, it was another one of those days for the pair. It just so happened to be the kitchen (again) this time around. Robin was just leaving, she was straightening the hem of her dress when she bumped right into someone.

"Oh. It's you. Again."

Robin let out an inward sigh. Zoro was right to have this reaction. In some cruel twist of fate, whenever Sanji and Robin were coming or going from somewhere together, Robin had been running into Zoro a good 80 percent of the time. She had honestly lost count of the number of times she'd had to stall Zoro with idle conversation so that Sanji could sneak away unnoticed.

So, yes, it was her. Again.

"Zoro-san! I was hoping I'd run into you, I was thinking we could chat." She was also thinking that Sanji was still very much undressed behind that kitchen door and needed all the time he could get.

"And I was thinking I could really go for some sake. So if you don't mind, you know, getting the hell out of my way, thanks."

"Yes, absolutely, in just a second, bu–"

"Actually, you know what? You wanna talk? Let's talk. I can get sake later."

Her eyes widened. He can get sake… later? This can't be good… "O-oh! Perfect, I was just going to sa–"

"Not here. Come on." He started off in the direction of the aquarium bar without looking back to see if she was following.

Well, if nothing else, Sanji would have plenty of time to get dressed, now.

Once they were there, Zoro spent a few extra minutes securing the area, triple checking that there was no one even remotely within earshot.

"Is everything all right?"

"Listen, I…" he began, ignoring her question. He wouldn't even look in her general direction.

Robin found herself wishing he wasn't so goddamn hard to read, still, even after all these years.

"I…" Both his hands were balled into tight fists, even as he took a deep breath, seemingly to try and steady himself.

It didn't work.

"I know what's going on, here."

Robin's knees gave out and she stumbled backwards. If not for the plush seating behind her, she certainly would have cracked her head open on the wooden planks at their feet.

A/N - I guess Shakespeare and Catholicism are now cannon in the One Piece world of my fic, haha. I just really like those particular idioms/sayings and I couldn't think of any good alternatives! Also, eagle-eyed readers will notice that whenever it takes me a long time to do a chapter, that means there's a sex scene and it scared me ;-; lmao. Oh, and "hora" just means like... "go ahead" or "go on," and in like... a sexual context it can be used to mean like... "finish" :x

Also I have plants for Luffy x Nami next chapter!