A/N: It's been years in the waiting, but here is an update. I lost my email and password for my FanFiction account for the longest time but finally managed to get back in. What's in store for you in this chapter? Some sexiness, some emotional baggage, some silliness, some revelations, some silliness, of course some banter, and...well read on and find out.
Chapter 18: Need
"I am not happy about this," Gaara stated after a few moments of just holding her close against him as she clung to him, "I do not like it…but…I do realize that it is not your fault. You…never technically lied to me."
"Neji was just trying to protect me, Gaara. In his own way." Zu stated while gripping his shirt and looking up at him with a need in her eyes that Gaara had to admit he enjoyed seeing directed at him, "I know he's…him and seems to have a stick permanently shoved up his ass but he only means well. I am a fugitive after all."
"Hn," was the only response she got from him on that and she looked at him a bit more pleadingly.
"Please don't hurt him…"
"Fine." He sighed and felt her hug him tighter, pressing her warm body into his, in thanks and relief, "Let's go back inside, princess".
She nodded and smiled a bit at that familiar affection in her title before returning to his sitting room with him. Zukiyo wasn't expecting an immediate return to how things were between them before she told him, but she was pleasantly surprised by him pulling her onto his lap before turning on the TV in his room. Looking up into his eyes, she guessed why he did such. Gaara didn't actually need to say that he cared about her and didn't want to lose her for her to know that. Pulling her close to him was his way of letting her know that. Letting her know she didn't have to be afraid of him.
"I'm not afraid of you. I know you won't hurt me, Gaara." Zu stated while curling up on his lap and resting her head on his shoulder, "I've never been afraid of that. I mean I know you're capable of it and could if you wanted to but…I know you won't. I was just afraid you wouldn't want me anymore. I wasn't afraid of you hurting me I was afraid of you leaving."
Gaara simply looked down at the princess in his lap. The thought had, of course, occurred to him earlier that he should leave, but it was only for a very brief moment. It was a normal reaction for him. However, he hadn't and he knew he could never actually leave her. He tilted her head up and looked down into her silver eyes as he considered what to do.
Part of him was still upset with her, but that part was quickly fading away as he saw the look in her eyes. He couldn't quite place what it was but the closest word that came to his mind was need. Part of him understood that he saw that in her eyes because, for some reason he wasn't sure of, he needed her just as much. The red head couldn't help that and he knew she saw that. He didn't have to say it, she just knew. She knew him better than anyone. Her having a title and being the Heir Apparent, he realized, did not change how he felt about her or what his instincts were telling him to do.
Simply put his instincts were telling him that he needed her, that she was his, his perfect match, and to make her his. Every immortal knew that it was impossible to deny one's own instincts, especially the one that drove you towards your future mate. Despite everything that he knew would happen by doing it, Gaara still wanted her. It astounded him and he probably would have pondered over it more had Zu not nuzzled his cheek at that moment and softly whispered one word. That one word was all it took for him to know she wanted what he did.
"Yours."
That was all it took for him to stop thinking about how upset he had been at her. She was his. Princess for real or not she was his princess and that was that. There was nothing and no one that would ever take her from him and he would kill them in the most brutal way he knew how if they even tried.
"Mine," Gaara replied before kissing her possessively, hungrily, yet tenderly.
The princess melted into it and the next one he pressed onto her lips as he pulled her closer against him. Zu couldn't have denied him anything in this moment even if she wanted to. Gaara wasn't the only one with instincts driving him forward. Zu had her own instincts and they were saying to her that she was Gaara's and Gaara was hers. Her instincts were begging her to give into them and not fight them. With Gaara still there after telling him of her title, Zu did just that. She gave into them.
Her arms wrapped around Gaara's neck lightly as she kissed back, pulling herself closer against him as she reciprocated each and every kiss she could. Shifting in his lap so she could get herself closer to him, Zu looked down into his eyes after breaking the last kiss. She could see very plainly that he wanted her as his and saw her as his. She did nothing to dispute his perception, she simply reinforced it.
"I am yours, Gaara," She whispered softly as she leaned down to kiss him again.
The red-headed vampire purred softly as she kissed him softly yet rather enticingly and teasingly and his lips twitched at a smile. He could guess that she was going to say something more. Something to get a reaction out of him as she always did, and he had to admit to himself at least that he loved when she did it.
"I'm yours if you can handle me that is," continued the gypsy in his lap with a soft smirk, her fangs just starting to show.
Gaara smirked back and growled a bit before pulling her closer and kissing her deeply. She melted right into it, purring and kissing back as his tongue slipped past her lips to coax hers into movement. This only made her melt more into him before tensing a little bit as his hand came up to rest lightly on her neck. That slight tense of her muscles caused him to pull back and nuzzle her nose softly and with a degree of tenderness no one thought him capable of.
"Why?" was all he asked as his eyes locked on hers curiously and tenderly.
Gaara wanted to know why she tensed and hid and told him not her neck. This was odd for a vampire to do. Vampires, well any immortal race that were tied to biting for blood or such really, had rather sensitive necks. It was a sweet weak spot for them really. Instinctually they were meant to like being bitten by their partners. It was part of claiming or being claimed as a mate. For Zu, whom Gaara knew to be as bloodthirsty as he was, it was very odd that she would be so reluctant about this.
Her hand went up to rest against his as it remained on her neck. Zu thought for a moment while leaning into his touch and looking into his eyes. She loved his touch even there. It was just reflex to tense like that. She moved his fingers down a bit so that they would graze against the scar there. She watched him frown as his fingers traced it. The princess saw the questions in his eyes and the promise that he'd never do such to her. He might bite her but he'd never do it hard enough to scar her or hurt her like that. Right now she knew he wanted to know who gave her that. It took a moment and a bit of emotional force to form the words of the answer.
"My sister," was all she could really say to him and his eyes widened in shock.
Despite what hunters thought, vampires did have laws, morals, and taboos. One was that you did not bite your siblings. This was related to the sexual nature of biting for vampires. Biting one's sibling was like incest and was forbidden with the only exception being dire emergencies. The fact that Zu and Yukiko were twins only made it worse.
Zu did not like to talk about this moment of her life or remember it. It pained her a great deal. A great deal more than she let on to anyone, yet if anyone had a right to know it was Gaara, and so she took a deep breath and began relating the events to him.
"I suppose now is as good a time as any to fully tell you of my relationship with the queen, my older, twin, sister. The real relationship…all of it. Not what…everyone thinks, knows, or…ever gossiped about. I mean the real one...the one I, in my anger with her, forgot but it's…it's been on my mind a lot lately. Yukiko and I…we…were born in two different years. She was first, born on December 31st in the year 1799 a few minutes before midnight. I came some minutes later on January 1st, 1800. We actually used to be very close. The closest of siblings as you can imagine any twins being. We were best friends…for the first few years of our lives. I can remember back to when I was 2 years old and…she was not insane then. Everyone always says that she was always insane. That she was born wrong, born insane, and that something was always wrong with her but it was not. She was not always like she is now."
Gaara would have preferred an instant answer to his question, but he knew Zu was telling him this for a reason. He also figured that it was possible she just needed to tell someone. Someone she knew would listen to her without interrupting her, and, as he knew he'd committed to being with her, he knew he needed to hear this. He could not go into this family without hearing about this relationship in particular as he knew it was the one that had changed his life and would change it further.
"She was sweet. Really, she was the sweetest thing. Always much sweeter than I was and a lot more girly. I can't cook to save my life. I can set water on fire I'm that bad, but Yukiko was a perfect little bundle of domestication. She loved tea parties and helping our grandmother with baking cookies. Everyone loved her. She was the…perfect little princess. The nobility loved her, they weren't overly fond of me but they loved her. My family loved us both. They loved our differences and she was my best friend. When we were almost 3 my mother's brother was released from prison…and everything…everything began to change."
This caught Gaara off guard a bit. Immortals did have prisons for their criminals; however, their prisons were for those that were the real monsters. People that did things that even he would never dream of doing in his wildest nightmares were sent to immortal prisons. The red headed vampire also knew that those sent to the prisons were not exactly meant to be released. He did not like where this was going.
"Oniji. I will never refer to him as my uncle if I can really help it. That man was not family, that man was a curse and a torment, and everything that is happening today is his fault. He was the one that started my sister's madness. Yukiko was a very impressionable child, too trusting, she…was…innocent. I know it's hard to imagine any vampiric child as innocent but she was. She looked up at people and just smiled at them and…she liked almost everyone she ever met and they liked her. Oniji…his smile down at her…I remember it made me feel sick in a way I didn't understand. I hid behind my father when that smile turned to me but Yukiko just smiled and…that…I think that in a way made my mother think that my sister's innocence could change him. It didn't. It only made him worse and he managed to get her to dislike feeding. He'd always pull her from our playtime, or pull her away from me for whatever reason he could find. I…I was alone for the first time in my life the day after he arrived and…I…I didn't know how to play by myself. We did everything together and he took her from me. When she came back that day it…I don't know what he did but she looked at me differently. From there it was downhill…all downhill. She hit me for the first time about a week after he arrived then started crying that she did and she apologized. Yukiko was terrified at what happened. We had a mental link back then. I could feel her fear. Still things got worse. It was like Oniji programmed her to stop feeding when he said a certain thing. Some days she was her normal self, others she wasn't. No one really paid mind to her good days other than my parents and family but…eventually there were less and less good days as we grew up…and slowly…even my family stopped seeing the good days, focusing on the bad instead." She continued while staring off a bit, curled up into Gaara's lap, and hoping that maybe he would understand her feelings about her sister…because no one else did.
"So your parents brought Neji and Hinata to live with you, hoping more children of her nature would help." He stated, remembering something along those lines as an event his father talked about once…vaguely since he never paid much mind to his father so didn't bother to remember what the man had said.
"Yes," the princess nodded and continued, "That was also the year of the garden incident I told you of. Where she locked me outside in the cold. The cold was just as dangerous as the lack of time…but that's a discussion for later and I ramble and get side tracked enough as it is. Yukiko...she blocked me out mentally that year, after Hinata and Neji arrived. I tried…so hard to fix her. I…I wanted my sister back. I had Neji and Hinata but they weren't Yukiko. I love them both but…that…bond I had with Yukiko was gone. All my life I've tried to…get her to be herself again and everyone thinks I'm stupid and insane for it. They don't remember how she was before the madness permanently set in. Up until our 100th birthday party…she'd have moments where she was herself as she used to be. Alone with me she'd…flicker into her old self half the time. Sweet, loving, caring, tender, with a sweet...gentle smile that made me forget every bad thing or hurtful thing she'd done or said to me and filled me with hope, and…and she was my sister. The council though…kept us apart as much as possible since they thought it was my fault she was like this. Every ten years or so she tried to kill me. I didn't always realize it but when I first came here I was…angry and realized she did. She was going to send me to one of the prisons and have me killed while there. I shouldn't have been so surprised really. It was right on schedule…but…I was just so angry…hurt really that…she wouldn't even try to do it again with her own hands. I'd become even less of a thing to her. Not…not important enough to deal with herself. From her twin sister and best friend to…a mere criminal unworthy of the queen's 'justice'. I was put on trial and sentenced to eternity in prison for something that…yes, I did, but was well within my rights to do. No one has the right to enter my rooms unless I invite them in. Even you don't just…barge in my rooms. I had just killed a pair of Hunters, a man and a woman, lovers, by...well I ripped them to pieces. I had been the first time I'd been out for the longest time and...I...may have gotten carried away a bit. You know how I adore a good blood bath and even though there were only two of them I made due. In the end I had no idea which part of them belonged to which one of them...other than the obvious bits. Well, Yukiko found out and...banished me to my rooms to get cleaned up and 'think about what I'd done'. I had just finished undressing when one of the nobility's sons, an ambassador from another clan it turned out, burst through my door, breaking open my locked door...now I've always been regarded as: 'the gypsy whore' by the nobility. Loose, immoral, wild, lascivious, a jezebel, and…as a literal prostitute at times...but I am not a whore. I am what I am but I am not...just...a piece of meat to be taken by anyone that wants it. I was in my underwear when this man just burst in! All I knew was his name...and barely at that. I didn't know him. Not really. All I knew in that moment was that I was practically naked, a man just burst through my locked door, tried to kiss me and pin me to a bed, and…well you know what I do when I'm angry or I panic."
Gaara nodded at that point as he recalled what happened earlier in the park with the hunter. Her eyes had gone black, she pushed the knife coming for her out of the way with an insanely quick reflex, and she ripped the hunter's throat out a literal instant later. It was the most fluid and brutally quick kill he'd ever really seen. The hunter was almost decapitated she so thoroughly ripped his throat out. Then he saw the split second confusion in her eyes as she looked at the dead hunter, panic in her eyes as she panted, and it was both the fact he knew she was scared the hunter had recognized her, since she was a fugitive, and that she looked so confused for that split second that had made him go over to her to see if she was alright.
"I know." He stated and nuzzled her cheek sweetly, silently letting her know his feelings for her ran deeper than a simple physical attraction, and even though he knew she knew, that he'd never disrespect her in that manner.
"I know, you wouldn't, Gaara…you knock on my door and wait for me to answer…he did neither and I killed him…quite brutally. I don't remember doing it. I just remember I was angry and felt such a huge shock that…that someone had the audacity and such little opinion of me that they would do this. Then…then he reached for my neck and everything went black. Then…I looked down and he was dead on my floor in a puddle of blood and his innards…then the guards ran in and…my sister had me taken into custody. She didn't…believe a word of what I said. She just called me a monster and…I…I don't want to think it was really her that put me on trial for it…too many council members looked pleased about it, but…for the first time since…" she started and rest her hand on her neck where the scar was, "Since this happened I felt something from her, from the bond she shut out…and…it was just hate. Pure, undiluted, raging, and disgusted hate."
Gaara hugged her close and kissed her head. He wasn't sure of how but he could feel her pain. He also realized that she was almost skirting around the answer to his previous inquiry of why her sister bit her. Still, the red haired male knew that Zu could talk for long lengths of time before reaching a point if she was in the right mindset and somehow he realized that she'd been holding all of this in for over 200 years. She had told no one any of this, but she was telling him.
"The night of our 100th birthday started off fine. It wasn't a really good day for her, but it wasn't a bad day either. It was somewhere in the middle…until…Oniji showed up. Then everything imploded. Honestly I don't really know how or what caused it but she…attacked me. I was fending off some male idiot trying to talk me into going somewhere with him since he realized: 'Hey...that's the spare princess. She's a princess too' and next thing I know is…pure pain flooding my entire body and pure hate flooding through my mind from my own twin sister. I had never been bitten before. It was something I…as sappy and…and as unlike something I'd do as it sounds, I wanted to wait and save that for the man I knew was going to be my mate…someone that…I had always hoped…would…understand me, cherish me, respect me, and…love me even in some small unspoken way. Love me for me...not...not just my body, not my title, my wealth, or my blood. A man that could...make me forget what it was to be a princess...or even better, one that could call me princess and I'd realize he meant his princess not the princess...like you do." She looked at the man she was sitting on and saw him smile very faintly at her last statement while holding her close before she continued on, "Anyway...my...my blood is addicting on a certain level due to the combination of my parents' bloodlines. Both are very old and my father's bloodline has a unique property to it that mixes with the Kamitsuyo bloodline, which is beyond ancient. I had never imagined that my own sister would bite me…and she almost drained me completely. It…I don't remember anything else until waking up 3 days later and feeling a throbbing pain in my neck where this scar is. The pain lasted for…a week before going away."
"It's not supposed to hurt like that, princess." The pureblood male said as he lightly rest his hand on the side of her neck and kept his hand there even after she tensed, his thumb lightly grazing over her jaw affectionately and gently until her muscles relaxed, then kissed her gently and in some way it soothed her and made her relax into his touch.
Zukiyo purred softly after the kiss ended, smiling a bit at him as he looked back at her calmly, his thumb gently starting to caress her jaw again as she did. She loved his touch and she adored how gentle he could actually be…and something dawned on her as she reflected on his hidden gentle nature: He had never hurt her. She knew this but had never fully thought about it. As rough and brutal as Gaara could be he had never hurt her even though he very easily could have. Even that time he threw her over his shoulder and carried her through the house he hadn't done it roughly. His grip on her was firm enough she couldn't escape but as she reflected on it she realized he'd never increased his grip to hurt her to make her stop even though she was trying very stubbornly to get him to set her down. Even the first day when he had pulled her off of Naruto, his best friend, he didn't hurt her. His grip was strong, unbreakable, firm, but he didn't hurt her.
This was a man that was feared for his brutality, his temper, his blood lust, but what she had gotten, even after countless threats issued to him, was patience and a refusal to harm her. Zu wasn't stupid by any means. She knew he had intended to kill her and that his patience was only an act at first, but it still showed that there was much more to him than people thought. He was still impatient, and she saw that plainly and often, but with her she knew she had received a side of this man no one ever had before. He didn't need to tell her that, she just knew it and saw it.
As brutal as he was, he'd never hurt her, as short a temper as he had, he never hurt her or remained angry with her for long, as dominant as he was in his territory he had on more than one occasion been perfectly content with letting her take the lead on things, and as quiet as he was compared to how much she talked he never outright ignored what she was saying when she needed someone to talk to. He wasn't a talker, she knew that early on, but it was that he was always so seemingly content to let her ramble on that amazed her. He'd told many people to shut up. She'd witnessed it, but he had never once told her to stop talking. He just listened. Even when angry with her he listened and he understood.
So many times while out in the city she would hear him talked about. When they had gone out to deal with the band of purebloods encroaching on his territory she'd heard several dozen earfuls about him from the vampires there trying to seduce her away. Gaara was sitting right there at the table letting her do as she pleased with thinning the heard and evening the odds as he talked with their leader. That was her main task but she still wanted to know what people thought of him and she learned a lot.
First of all was that his territory was far larger than she really knew. It was easily the largest individually maintained territory in the entire world. It encompassed the entire city and its suburbs. The vampires there didn't think it was fair one pureblood had all of that to himself, especially one vampire that didn't seem to know how to enjoy it or himself. They all confessed to being honestly surprised at seeing 'someone so sexy and beautiful' walking in with notorious red-headed vampiric male. There had been rumors through the years regarding his personal life of course, but no names, nothing concrete, just gossip, and when they saw Zu they were apparently surprised someone would put up with him.
He was rumored to be dull, impossible to talk to, and notoriously uninterested in anything that wasn't bleeding. They told tales of his heartless nature. How nothing ever moved him to anything other than anger and Hunger. They told of the rumors they'd heard that he had absolutely no emotions. That he just senselessly did things because he felt like it. They told of the rumors he'd been too much to handle for his home city so he moved away to find more agreeable hunting grounds. Rumors of his relationship with Naruto also surfaced and it took a great deal of effort from Zu not to burst out laughing at them. Time and time again she heard that Gaara was not a man capable of giving emotions or understanding them in a way that these men believed she needed. They were wrong.
He didn't show his emotions or talk about them often, but she could always see them. Hidden in the depths of his eyes, his face, his voice, and even in the way he sat or walked. He wasn't even aware of it himself she knew. The princess knew she had caused him a lot of turmoil regarding dealing with emotions he'd never really dealt with before, but she also knew he was capable of dealing with them. As much as he was thought and unfeeling, single minded, and simple minded beast…Zu knew very well that he was not. He was just quiet, introverted, kept things to himself instead of wearing them on his sleeve, and that out of everyone she'd ever met who had ever known pain…he knew her pain and understood it. She could see in his eyes as she sat looking at him that on some level he understood what she was trying to say, or at the very least he was trying his absolute best to understand, and that meant everything to her.
Gaara's thumb ran over the scar lightly after moving his hand down a bit to do so. It horrified even him and he did his best to think of how to convey to her that he would never do that. That even though he was intending on something similar at the very beginning that he wasn't going to do any such thing to her now. He couldn't bring himself to harm her. Sabaku no Gaara was a rough person by nature, and he wouldn't exactly play tender all the time but he would never harm her.
His thinking was somewhat interrupted by the soft, trusting, tender smile that curved up on Zu's face as she looked at him. Her hand rest on the one of his on her neck still, she leaned into his touch once more while purring and looking into his eyes, and he knew she understood what he couldn't find words that were adequate enough for him to say it. Gaara knew all too well saying something was one thing…but acting upon those words was another.
"I know being bitten isn't supposed to hurt like it did. I also know…that…you won't do anything like that. I trust you. Completely. I trust you with everything. However, I'm going to tense if you go for my neck or any part of me with the intent to bite. It's a reflex and I can't help it. I…I know why I do it. It's…a scar. I mental as well as physical one…one that hasn't healed. I'm going to pull back and tense whenever you touch or get close to my neck…even if I want you to." The princess explained before nuzzling Gaara's nose, unable to resist doing so as she felt an overwhelming desire to show him in any way she could that it had nothing to do with him.
"Do you?" he asked as he pulled her close to him again and Zu smiled a bit teasingly.
"Well…I kind of am taking the time to explain this to you while sitting in your lap all pressed up against you…nuzzling your nose…" She said with a soft enticing purr to her voice, "Of course if you preferred I could leave and write you an essay about it…get up off your lap, leave you alone in your room for hours on end with nothing but…well yourself."
This was the Zu Gaara was used to and quite honestly adored even when he was furious with her: the teasing, tempting, warm, sexy flirt of a vampiric gypsy. He knew there were many sides to this woman, many different facets of her being, and many things no one understood about her that he hoped she'd share with him. Still, the fact said woman was, as she stated, sitting in his lap pressed up against him rather distracted him from dwelling on things for too long…especially when she shifted in his lap to face him more. He knew he couldn't fight back his instincts for much longer. It was a challenge not to pin her down beneath him and sink his fangs into that pale slender neck of hers as her scent alone was enough to make him want to when her neck was covered. Her neck wasn't covered now and it was very, very close as she kissed his cheek teasingly and in some way quite seductively.
"Hn…very true, princess," he replied, his own voice a bit lower with that want for her, purring smoothly almost as he spoke and kissed where her jaw met her neck and felt her tense a bit and he waited for her to nod before he continued to kiss her skin.
The princess in his lap purred softly as he continued to kiss the spot even as her body reflexively tried to lean back away from him. It didn't get too far as he held onto her tightly but gently, holding her close to him without trying to be overbearing. It was this that made her smile; that he was so actively trying to do this as gently as possible.
"I know gentle is not in your normal repertoire, Gaara, and you know it's not normally in mine but I must admit that I love it right now."
Gaara simply chuckled a bit at that and nipped at her jaw lightly before kissing her deeply and passionately as he debated between two things: couch or bed. Either way he and his instincts were intent on having what he had been desirous of for so long and more as long as she was willing…and the way she kissed back, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing back against him as she did told him she was willing. Willing and eager.
"Well, that went better than expected." Naruto stated and sat down while everyone else looked at him questioningly.
The Kyuubi had gone silent on the updates to what was going on a while before. Hinata could guess at what was going on simply by her knowledge of Zu as well as Naruto's habits. Neji could too really but he was just refusing to do so. The other two Sabaku siblings were not sure if they wanted to know. Neji however decided that for them.
"What exactly do you mean?"
"The obvious: She's alive. They're alone…locked inside his room and what Gaara wants Gaara gets. I'm not spelling it out for you since I'm pretty sure even you can figure out what happens when man plus woman plus locked bedroom door equals." The kyuubi stated and saw Neji's eye twitch a bit.
"I did not need that image of my brother," Temari stated and Kankuro nodded in agreement before she left the room.
"Thank the oblivious one." Kankuro stated, meaning Neji before he too got up to go to bed.
Hinata was oddly calm with such a thing. Then again she knew how Zu was so it didn't really shock her. She had realized a long time ago that when Zu liked something, or rather someone, and she wanted them sexually…there were few in the world that could resist her.
"Nii-san, you really should have known the answer to that. It's Zu."
"….." and a blank stare was the only response from Neji before he just walked away.
Neji was just going to block it out. He knew this was best for Zu, didn't mean he liked it, but he knew it.
With the removal of everyone else Naruto simply turned his attention to his own beloved being. Hinata was rather content with this. With Zu safe and taken care of the Hyuuga female was more than happy to spend time with her nine-tailed demon.
Zu meanwhile was slowly being driven into a daze by Gaara's kisses. He had eventually decided on taking her to the bed. Of course the only reason he decided this was simply because it was starting to get brighter in the sitting room as the sun rose outside and his bedroom windows had thick drapes over them to block out the light. He didn't much like the blinding light and he knew his princess had a particular distaste for it that outmatched his.
Zu had little actual consciousness of what Gaara was doing other than picking her up, was carrying her somewhere, and that she loved every second of it. Only when she heard the door shut did she smile in realization. It was a teasing, enticing, yet sweet and loving smile as she ran her fingers into his hair and nipped at his lip.
"Intent on having your way with me aren't you?"
The only response she got to that was an aroused growl before being set gently down on his bed. Her immediate instinct was to purr up at him and that was exactly what she did earning a purr back from the red headed male as he sat down on the bed next to her. Zu realized he was fighting with his instinct to just claim here right then and there as his mate. Trying to reign in his desires and emotions so he wouldn't hurt her…trying to take his time. The fact he was trying to take his time with this made her smile as she slid into his lap once more and kissed him in a way that made Gaara understand one simple truth: she loved him.
He didn't know how he knew it, having so little experience with the feeling, but he did. The one thing he had always wanted but was denied so tenaciously he thought himself incapable of receiving it…was there in that kiss being given to him without hesitation, fear, or duplicity. Gaara knew she was capable of lying. She lied remarkably well, but she never lied to him and he knew deep in his soul that she would never lie about this. She would never lie to him about something she wanted as well. Kamitsuyo Zukiyo, Crown Princess and Heir Apparent of the Vampiric and Immortal Throne wanted what he had only recently admitted he wanted himself: companionship, understanding, acceptance, and love despite everything that they both were, despite everything that they had both done, and despite everything that was yet to come.
Kissing her back, he did his best to make her understand what he knew he wasn't ready to say. What he couldn't say. That his desire for her was more than any simple sexual lust…it was also a love for her he couldn't deny anymore. Gaara knew he couldn't say it but he also knew she understood and smiled against her lips as she brought his hand up to her neck.
"I…reflexively fear being bitten as I have said already." She started to explain after the kiss while nuzzling his nose as his other arm held her close to him in a way that made her smile, "However…I want you to. I…want you to bite me because I…I don't entirely know why. It's a craving on an instinctual level. To just open myself up completely and offer myself to you…completely. Give you everything I can…because…you know why."
He nodded, realizing that she wasn't able to say it just yet either. It was odd, and yet it wasn't. Zu was an endless source of chatter and talked near constantly and at great length, but she didn't talk senselessly. She knew that anything she said could have consequences.
"I know." He stated softly and kissed her again, slipping his tongue against hers quickly, dazing her just slightly before teasing her a bit, "You're nervous."
"Yes, I'm nervous!" she stated, trying not to smile but finding it impossible to resist as he looked at her a bit impishly and quickly kissed her neck, making her jump a bit then sigh, "Yes…I'm nervous but…not…not…because I don't trust you. I just don't know what I'm going to do. I want this. I really…really want this."
"Are you sure?" he asked and nuzzled her jaw slowly, tenderly, feeling her stiffen at first but relax after a moment as he continued then felt her stiffen again as he spoke against her skin, "We don't need to…not yet."
"I know…but I want to." The princess answered as she held his head gently and gripped his hair as he kissed her neck gently, "I want you to. You. Only you. I've had plenty of lovers…of all kinds."
"Mhmm." He responded, kissing her neck gently again and again and again, only when her body stopped tensing at each kiss did he let his tongue graze gently and quickly against her skin in the next kiss and smirked as she tensed but gasped pleasantly.
"You're not listening." She gasped as he did it again, his tongue pressing a bit more firmly before proving that he indeed had been listening.
"You've had plenty of lovers." He repeated and held her close against him as he kissed her neck again then licked it quickly as he loved the taste of her skin, "Of all kinds…you're trying to distract me."
"I am not." The princess protested instantly and bit her lip pleasantly as he kissed her neck again, her muscles tensing only slightly as she felt his tongue against her neck, and she smiled as his hand on the other side of her neck ever so slightly tightened as she leaned back slightly, cradling her neck as he followed, not trying to stop her from moving, "I…I'm just trying to get things out in the open. No more surprises."
"Just stalling…" he teased and kissed her lips gently then looked at her, "Tell me all about them then since you seem so intent on trying to irritate me."
"Does it irritate you I've been with others?" she asked as she looked at him and saw him blink a incredulously at her before looking her over from her face, down her body to her hips, and then back making her sigh and roll her eyes, "You are far more perverted than people give you credit for."
"My brother runs several clubs and has a list of lovers so long it's wrap around the entirety of this city at least once, I live with Naruto, and…" he began and pulled her closer against him, "I've had lovers of my own."
She raised an eyebrow at this. While she wasn't surprised, as he was older than her, handsome, and despite everything he was still had a number of women in the city that lusted after even a small chance at him, she was stunned he had admitted it. The look in his eyes as he looked at her hair on her neck was slightly playful…and amused.
"You wanted no surprises." He stated dryly while toying with one of her curls then looked at her and growled as she shifted in his lap slightly, pressing against him.
"I suppose you'll know how to please me enough I won't rip your heart out then." She purred a bit dangerously, pressing close against him, and nuzzled his nose while looking into his eyes, "Because I have done that…for the past 90 years I've ripped the heart out of every lover I've had. Bedding me is a dangerous thing, my dear."
"Well I don't have much competition to worry about…" he stated and she chuckled.
"I've had lovers before that which are still very much alive…but only one of those will ever give you any trouble…and not because I carry a torch or anything…but because he's…complicated. Someone I very much want to kill but can't." she stated as Gaara was about to go back to her neck but he looked at her curiously, sensing this was important, "He's why I've ripped out the hearts of all my lovers for the past 90 years. He's…he's the Why behind everything this past month really. The…the…going back to you, pushing you away, going back, pushing you away harder, and so on."
"Who?" Gaara asked, seeing in her eyes a need to tell him, and feeling a need to know who could have hurt the woman he adored so badly.
"Max."
A/N: I know it's been a long time coming, and I cannot give you an exact time there will be another chapter. I can tell you that most of the next two chapters are written and just need editing. I can also tell you that one of them will be highly sexual and lemon scented if you catch my drift. Provided my life doesn't get too busy the next chapter won't take three years. As always feel free to message or review all you'd like. If anything they get me to keep writing.