6 - AFTERGLOW
Her footsteps whispered to a stop outside of his bedroom, her presence hovering uncertainly at the threshold without a sound. Vegeta glanced up at his closed door, waiting for Bulma to knock or otherwise announce herself, but as the seconds ticked by, he frowned, fiddling with the t-shirt in his hands. It was practically unheard of for her to disturb him in his room, and she made a point to avoid entering it unless necessary. He sensed something else behind her hesitation, however, and it made his hackles rise defensively.
He had been dreading this inevitable situation, and as inept at social interactions as he was, even he recognized it was past time that they had a conversation about whatever the hell was going on between them. He considered escaping through the balcony and taking off into the wilderness for another few days, or leaving the planet altogether. Maybe indefinitely.
The lightest of knocks reached his sensitive ears, light enough that, had he been asleep, he may not have been roused at all. He stood stock still in the relative darkness clad only in flannel sleep pants, momentarily undecided. He could avoid this intrusion by remaining silent, but just the thought of it made him feel cowardly, so he chuffed out a breath, tossed aside his shirt, and answered the door.
"What?" he bit out, more gruffly than he'd intended.
Her eyes widened, as if surprised that he had actually opened the door at all.
"May I come in?" she asked quietly, regaining her composure quickly.
Vegeta side-stepped and gestured dumbly with his hand, the irony of her asking to enter a space within her own house not lost on him.
She swept past him, the satin rustle of her pale gray robe following her until she paused in the middle of his room, framing herself in the moonlight that poured in from the glass balcony doors. The length of her robe barely reached her knees, and it was tied at her waist with a flimsy sash. His eyes followed the curves of her bare calves up to the hint of her thighs, his cheeks heating up when he caught her looking over her shoulder saucily.
Maybe she wasn't in the mood to talk after all. He smirked and slowly stalked up behind her, savoring her shiver and the way her skin broke out in goosebumps as his lips made contact with the nape of her neck.
"I'm glad you're back," she said, tilting her head for him.
He chuckled darkly. "No one's ever said that to me before," he rumbled against her throat, arms circling her waist. "Why would you?"
"Let's just say I've had some very restless nights while you've been out blowing up mountains or whatever," she replied, leaning back into him.
The robe was cool and silky along his naked chest, and he held back a groan when her ass pressed into his groin. His hands slid up along the satin, his fingers gently teasing her nipples through the fabric before cupping each breast firmly and nibbling her earlobe. She untied the sash and rolled her shoulders, and together they swept the robe aside, allowing it to pool on the floor between their feet. She was wearing nothing under it, save for a blue scrap of lace that could hardly be classified as a garment.
"Take me to bed," she requested in a whisper.
It had been over a month since their heated encounter in the gravity room, but it had not been their last. Their secretive trysts took place in all manner of odd sites around the compound, but their bedrooms had remained their own private sanctums up until now. Mindful of his inexperience and reservations regarding intimacy, Bulma most often waited until he sought her out; this was the most forward she had been with him in weeks.
Scooping her up effortlessly, he found himself unable to deny her, regardless of how disconcerting the visual of her laying in his bed might be. By now he had seen her in various states of undress, but this was the most bared to him that she had ever been all at once, beautiful and radiant in the moonlight. Her arms beckoned to him, and he settled his weight on one elbow at her side, their legs tangling together as he eased himself partially atop of her. Welcomed immediately into her embrace, he felt her hands roaming the scarred planes of his shoulders and back.
Emboldened now that he was more accustomed to her closeness and touch, he lowered his face to hers for a searing kiss. His free hand went to her thigh, flattening out so that his palm moved up in a languid caress along the curve of her hip, then over her stomach to between her breasts, stopping there to feel the pounding of her heart directly beneath. He could sense her ki, weak in terms of strength but somehow surging with so much vitality it hardly seemed possible that she should be able to contain it.
Lips parting as their breathing became labored, Bulma switched her focus to pepper kisses down his jawline and beyond. When he felt the delicious pinch of her teeth by his jugular, his mind chose that exact moment to recall the last time his throat had been at the mercy of another creature's maw. It seemed like a lifetime ago, and perhaps it had been, really, as he had died between then and now. His old self, sputtering back into consciousness in a regeneration tank, would have never understood the reckless allowances he made for this Earthling.
"Vegeta," she moaned longingly, snapping him back to the present. "I want you so bad, I'm going crazy."
Bulma's hands dipped down into his pants, her thumbs brushing over the large, sensitive scar his severed tail had left behind. He gripped her waist roughly, his breath catching as her hands moved around to the front, her fingers tracing the grooves just below his hip bones with maddening tenderness. She snagged the waistband of his sleep pants, giving them a pointed tug.
"Can we...?" she asked hazily, turning her head so her breath rippled over the shell of his ear.
His whole body froze, and she released his waistband in response, her touch returning to his back almost shyly.
"Is this...because I'm human?"
"I don't care that you're human," he stated. It had been a concern at first, the potential of harming her unintentionally, but she wasn't quite as frail as she appeared, and he always powered down completely when they were together in this way.
"You don't seem nervous anymore," she said. "You shouldn't be, if you are. You make me feel so good."
The hungry glint in her eye and the sultry tone of her praise sent a pleasant flutter straight to his cock, and despite really not wanting to talk right now, he couldn't bring himself to willingly pull away from her.
"So what's wrong?" she pressed.
"I never expected you too keep wanting more," he said flatly
"Of course I want more," she retorted, shifting her legs so his pelvis settled between them.
Vegeta straightened his arms, raising his chest off of hers, a hand planted on the mattress to either side of her shoulders and regarded her soberly. "Once you finally realize what I am, you will not."
She shook her head in disagreement, legs wrapped insistently around him.
How he despised the way he craved her, the way he was compelled to keep going back to her like an addict in need of a fix. Even now, all he wanted to do was ravage her to the best of his yet untried abilities, but it was time that she knew what she was really getting herself into if she tied herself to him.
"If we keep this up," he said, struggling to get his thoughts together coherently, "the pair-bond that's started between us will strengthen and complicate everything. I don't need that kind of distraction. Sensing your inane worries and fears, not to mention all of your ridiculous human sentiments, will probably drive me insane."
She stiffened below him, her blue eyes troubled. "Are you...breaking up with me? Over this Saiyan bond thing that you mentioned once in passing, like it was no big deal?" she asked, her voice getting louder and more agitated with every word.
"It was supposed to be a warning, but you never pay attention to those," he answered, exasperated.
"Your ten second mumbled explanation didn't exactly make that clear," she snapped, propping herself up on her elbows to more effectively glower at him. "I'm sorry my hysterical human emotions scare you so badly that you need to end something that's actually been pretty great," she yelled.
"I'm not afraid of anything!" he snarled back viciously, their noses almost touching.
His blood was boiling now, caught somewhere between arousal, rage, and denial, and Bulma, simmering in her own anger, practically naked and with her legs still clamped around him, had the absolute audacity to scoff right in his face.
Gods help him, her fire only added fuel to his own. He was so fucking hard it ached, and feeling her heat pressed between his legs and watching her pant as she waited for the next round of verbal sparring was sinfully agonizing. Pinned below one of the most powerful beings in the universe, in the most compromising of positions, and still, she was fearless. Fierce, even. It drove him seven kinds of wild.
Tamping down his more negative impulses, he glared back. "I'm not good at this, okay?" he said through bared teeth. "I wasn't done."
"Fine," she huffed, "by all means, continue."
"It's not just me, you'll feel things, too," he grumbled irately. "Don't you understand how often I am subjected to extreme conditions and pain?" he asked somberly, unable to find the words to express that he wasn't only referring to the physical sense. His life had been a nightmare, his experiences extreme even for a battle-hardened warrior, and he was loathe to share what kind of damage it had done to his psyche with her.
"Is that really what's been making you hold back?" she asked, her own temper seeming to subside. She brushed her fingers through the hair at his temple. "Look," she sighed, "I can't speak for you, but I don't think it will be an issue on my end. Honestly, I don't even know why you think I'll be able to tap into this bond, I don't feel anything like that," Bulma said.
"Oh, really?" Vegeta tilted his head, skeptical. "Then how did you know I was back tonight?"
"I just...knew," she said slowly, her brows wrinkling in confusion as she pondered it.
"You can't sense ki," he reminded her.
"But I can sense you," she said, then smiled brightly.
"You aren't taking this seriously."
"It's not like I was ever expecting an easy or normal go of it with you, Spaceman," she teased.
He averted his eyes. "Tch."
"I've made my choice. Stop trying to push me away or spook me into making yours for you."
He exhaled loudly, irritated to be called out twice in one night. It would have been so much easier to accept her rejection, much more so than admitting to himself that he could not refuse her as long as he knew that she wanted him as well.
"You test me to the very ends of my patience," he conceded.
"That's why you like me and you know it," she sassed.
"Don't flatter yourself." He lowered his face to chuff into her ear. "I merely dislike you the least."
"That still makes me your favorite," she said, her nails tracing erratic circles between his shoulder blades.
He relaxed into the sensation, settling his weight onto her a little more. He pressed a kiss just behind her ear, then lower at her collarbone, his hand traversing her petite frame wherever his own body wasn't already covering until it came to rest on one breast. He plucked at her nipple between his thumb and forefinger carefully while his mouth encircled the other rosy target and sucked sharply.
She hummed and fisted his coarse hair as his touch wandered lower, tracing each delicate rib with the pads of his fingertips. His mouth relinquished her nipple to kiss the flat of her stomach, and his pulse began to race in his chest at her whimpers when he ran his fingers up and down along the damp, blue fabric of her panties.
"Please, Vegeta," she groaned, drawing out his name and wriggling into his hand.
"What were you doing on those restless nights that you told me about earlier?" he asked, thoroughly enjoying the sound of her begging. Sitting up, he withdrew his touch from her completely. "Show me."
With a frustrated whine, her hand disappeared quickly beneath the lace. Hooking his finger around the flimsy material, Vegeta tore it away with one sharp tug so he could watch, unobstructed, as her own fingers breached the wet folds of her pussy.
"This is what you do, alone in bed at night, while thinking of me?"
"Mmm, only you," she agreed, and he watched in fascination as her glistening finger slid up and almost out of her, moving in tight, circular motions at the apex of her sex. "Let me see you, all of you," she murmured, her pupils blown in a sea of blue.
Vegeta peeled out of his sleep pants, freeing his erection so it could stand unfettered along his belly, the weeping head of it resting just below his navel. She propped herself up to get a better view of him, her eyes drinking in his muscular form unabashedly as her hand sped up between her splayed legs.
He grinned wickedly. "And now that you have me, the Prince of all Saiyans, here at last, what would you have me do?"
"Kiss me," she whispered breathlessly.
He advanced, leaning awkwardly over her half-reclined form, one hand taking his weight on the mattress by her hip for balance, and the other cradling the side of her flushed face. She opened her mouth to his immediately, their tongues darting together in a dizzying, all-consuming kiss.
Bulma was the one to pull away first, her breathing heavy. "Yes, just like that, but much lower," she said suggestively, her lips twitching up in a mischievous smirk.
At first he was taken aback, unsure that he had caught her meaning properly until she moved her hand out of the way. Her scent was unbearably enticing, her pussy sopping wet and waiting for his attention, and now that she had planted the idea in his head, he suddenly found himself curious as to how she might taste.
"You vulgar woman," he said, bemused.
She must have been expecting him to be tentative in the beginning, because she yelped in surprise and relief as he dove straight for the spot that he had seen her linger while she had pleasured herself. The scent and taste of her flooded his brain, musky and salty-sweet, his tongue flicking and swirling to tease what turned out to be a superbly sensitive bud of flesh.
"Holy fuck, Vegeta!" she cried out, her head lolling back and flinging her forearm over her face.
Hooking his arms around her thighs to keep her still, he found a rhythm that had Bulma imploring him not to stop, and he was happy to oblige as her words flowed into a nonsensical keening. Her hips continued straining vainly against his grip, and when she started trembling he lapped at her still, not stopping until she pushed at his shoulder with her foot, mewling for mercy through stuttered sobs.
If he hadn't been grinding into his own blankets for friction while going down on her, he would have demonstrated that Saiyans showed no mercy in anything. Instead, he stared down at her fervently as he wiped his face, his focus on her sharp and animalistic. Crawling over her, he trailed zealous kisses up her belly and heaving chest to her mouth, her lips puffy and soft. Her heels dug into the backs of his thighs and she grabbed his ass firmly, drawing him closer to her until his length rubbed along the outside of her slick entrance.
He growled through clenched teeth at the contact, silken and hot, absolutely done with holding himself back from this any longer. He lined them up, urgent to discover how she would feel once he was inside of her, nudging past her outer lips with his swollen head. She was so wet that it only took two clumsy thrusts to sheath himself fully within her, and she moaned delectably as she stretched around him, squeezing his ass even harder in approval.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck when she made eye contact, suddenly unable to process the overwhelming awareness that they were touching, everywhere, skin to skin. Pushing aside the last of his anxiety, he concentrated instead on how familiar he had become with her touch, how perfectly her lithe body fit to his. The taste of her on his tongue and the memory of her cumming for him sent a gratifying tingle down his spine, and if he'd still had his tail, it would have given a lively lash. His need to witness her come undone once more at his behest outweighing all else, he rolled his hips in deep, even movements, attempting to acclimate himself to the sensation.
"Yes, that's it," she mumbled blissfully into his ear, and he credited his extensive training for the self-control it took not to spill himself right then.
Once he got a handle on himself, he rocked back on his heels, rearing up so that he was kneeling and able to observe all of her movements and reactions. A moan rumbled low in his chest as he captured her by the hips, lifting her bottom off the bed to keep her pinned to him as he shifted positions, his hands sliding under her to grasp the flawless mounds of her rump. He watched himself pull nearly out of her before pushing back into her snug heat inch by tantalizing inch, then repeated the same motion, over and over as she writhed against his slow pace and her fingernails pricked into his thighs.
When he trusted his restraint once again, he increased the tempo of his thrusts in small, cautious increments, unsure of her limits. She threw her head back, her cries growing louder and his name on her lips. She braced herself against the headboard, arms above her head and chest jutting up, giving herself the leverage to match his thrusts and reassuring him of her continued enthusiasm. They also met with more force in this way, his cock able to plunge deeper until he hit a spot within her that had her sputtering for breath.
"Right there...don't stop," she pleaded. "Oh, gods, Vegeta..."
Bulma's ki flared restlessly, her unique energy signature forever branded into his memory. He could feel her subconscious need to connect to him on this level, even if she wasn't aware of it herself. Close to her release, one of her hands left the headboard to claw at his blankets, and he reached out for it for the first time since their tryst in the Gravity Room. Bracing himself, he unraveled her fingers to interlace with his and pressed her hand to the bed, palm to palm. The link was more powerful this time, instant and electric like two power sources surging through one conduit, their ki merging and twining all around them.
"Bulma..." he gasped, their voices becoming a broken symphony of moans and ragged breaths.
His muscles constricted low in his belly, his body curling forward and over her. Teeth bared with the effort of delaying the completion his body chased, his eyes slammed shut and he got lost in an erratic series of desperate thrusts. She was silent for a moment, then her muscles fluttered and clenched around his cock in a way that had him seeing stars behind his eyelids. Once she found her voice again she called out with abandon, arching herself into him, hard, driving him in as deep as she could take him as her thighs shuddered uncontrollably at his waist. He gave in then with a shout, pouring himself into her as his vision went white, their ki crackling harmoniously.
Vegeta felt as if they were suspended briefly in time and space, just the two of them in all of existence. Nothing else mattered in those moments, the constant weight he carried with him obliterated and leaving him buoyant.
He slumped heavily to the mattress beside her as the waves of pleasure began to ebb, and the realities of the world gradually crept back in.
"Kami...that was...amazing," Bulma managed.
A contented agreement emanated from him that sounded embarrassingly similar to a purr, but he couldn't bring himself to care just then. They basked in the afterglow as their heartbeats and breathing slowly returned to normal and their energy calmed into a warm, soothing hum.
He stared up at the ceiling, pondering how it was that this disheveled woman, now faintly snoring by his side, was the only person who could temporarily quiet the demons in his head. He rolled over to face her, considering her vulnerable, naked form in the moonlight.
Mine, he thought, and then, alternatively, from someplace softer that he didn't even like to admit existed, Hers.
He refused to be owned by someone else, not again, but he didn't view Bulma as a possession for his taking, either. The idea of giving oneself freely, of belonging to each other, started to make more sense to him, especially now that he was willing to acknowledge the bond budding between them. A pair-bond meant partnership, a metaphysical link that formed between life mates to keep them close in a war culture that frowned upon emotional proclamations and open affection.
It had made him balk at first; Vegeta was not one to do anything in half measures, and once he'd set his mind to something, it was all or nothing. That had never before involved him having to extend his orbit beyond considering his own self, and he wasn't ready for a mate, no matter how much his subconscious disagreed. Even so, he also was obviously not prepared to abandon the only person who had ever bothered to forge any kind of connection to him. Though the timing was horrible and he had little to offer her, she made him want to try and do better, and there was real power in that.
She stretched languidly and opened her eyes, looking sheepish for dozing off. "Sorry," she yawned, swinging her legs leisurely over the side of the bed and sitting, back exposed to him. "I know you like to wake up early, I'll let you get some rest."
He trapped her wrist in his hand to stop her forward momentum, and she cast a questioning glance over her shoulder.
"You may have taught me a few things tonight," he said, offering her a feral grin, "but if you think I'm done, you have a whole lot to learn about Saiyan stamina."