In Err, My Suffering
Part IV
Nothing had mattered except her, having her, convincing her...
Only, he hadn't convinced her.
Misao clearly wasn't ready and he didn't know what "ready" was. What were they getting ready for?
It wasn't sex, last night had proven that.
It had to be more than that.
Commitment? Marriage? Children? What?
He had the nagging feeling it had a lot more to do with leaving the past where it lay and moving forward toward commitment and marriage and children. He wondered if Misao knew that.
So he'd made his decision.
The only problem was he knew Misao had not made her decision and hers was all that mattered.
Morning was still several hours off and Misao had not shifted or made any indications that she was having bad dreams. He had contemplated leaving, but ultimately found himself unable to pull himself away. He regarded it as his personal weakness that he was unable to leave her side that he couldn't deny himself the painful pleasure of lying beside her.
He was a weak man.
Broken by a woman.
And he couldn't change it.
He didn't even want to, a sure sign of complete defeat.
He switched positions, laying on his back and she curled herself around him in her sleep. He sighed.
There would be no peace, no sweet lassitude of sleep for him this night. Perhaps any night, if she ever asked him to do this again.
Gently prying himself away from her, he sat up and shrugged his yukata off his shoulders. He had worn nothing beneath the thin garment, it was simply too warm. He was hesitant to remove it with Misao in the bed beside him. He would be far too tempted to wake her and...
"Aoshi-sama?"
She sounded sleepy and he glanced toward her. It was too dark to see her face, only the general silhouette of her.
She sat up and laid her head against his arm.
"Can't sleep?"
She sounded so young. Reminders of Misao age always made him feel like he was shaming himself and her by thinking the way he did of her.
It made his lust for her a guilty pleasure.
"No," he replied.
The heat didn't help, but it wasn't the warmth of the environment that was keeping him awake. It was Misao next to him that was keeping him from sleep. Memories, thoughts, desires...
Of past, of present...
In this room, on this floor, in this bed... he'd had her here.
He wanted her again.
A thin sheen of sweat covered his body and the more he thought, the worse his situation got. It had only begun as a way to keep himself occupied, thinking about other things. He couldn't very well turn off his thoughts.
Somehow his thoughts had morphed into that afternoon in the forest, but had quickly turned into a vision of her in his lap, of his hands on her hips, guiding her as she rode him.
It was intensely erotic and the feelings had caused him no short amount of aggravating grief. He'd gone back and forth between irritation at his weakness and pulse pounding desire. It wasn't any better really that he'd sat there for at least an hour contemplating how good it would feel to touch himself when she was laying there right next to him.
It felt wrong and illicit and... good.
But in the end, he hadn't.
"Too warm?"
Her voice brought him back and he glanced down at her dark form at his side. Too warm was certainly one way to describe it, wasn't it?
But Misao was afraid of him. That he knew. He'd seen her tremble and shy away just slightly. He knew not what her dreams were about, but he knew enough that they were of him.
He hadn't been gentle with her when they had joined in the forest. It was that memory, perhaps more than the one they had recently made that stuck with him so vividly.
He hadn't been exactly gentle with her in this room the last time, had he?
No…
"Aoshi-sama…?"
He glanced back at her.
"Did you sleep at all tonight?"
Could she tell? Even in the dark?
"Not much," he admitted, feeling the need to be truthful.
He couldn't lie to her without feeling guilty and he wanted no more guilt with Misao.
"Can't relax? Too hot? Do you have enough room?" she sounded young and innocent and it made him feel like a heel that he was thinking about slipping her yukata off and …
He cleared his throat and hurriedly looked away. She had pulled her yukata back over her shoulder from where he'd tugged it off.
"Aa," he answered to none specifically, hoping the answer would quiet her.
Even sounding young she sounded appealing and he didn't like what it was doing to his body. No, he took that back, he did like what it was doing to him, but it was wrong and had to stop.
He was indulging himself too much.
"Can I touch you, Aoshi-sama?"
She'd asked this before and he'd obliged. He wanted her to touch him, to be unafraid, to feel… safe. Misao should never feel unsafe with him. She was the most precious thing in the world to him.
He laid back down and closed his eyes. When she moved he stayed still, but when he felt her body moving over his, the inside of her knee on the other side of his waist, his eyes flew open, startled.
She settled, sitting over his hips. He pulsed beneath her and he could only wonder what she thought of him pressed against her. He could feel the heat of her seeping through his clothes. He knew she had to feel him, but she made no indication of it. Her expression was hidden in darkness.
"Can I touch you all over, Aoshi-sama?"
His throat tightened and he grunted and he let her take the answer any way she would. It didn't seem to discourage her, however, as she laid her hands against his chest. She pressed her palms against him; he could feel the sweat between her palms and his skin. He dropped his head back further, lifting his chin, turning his eyes away from her silhouette atop him.
She slid her hands, higher and higher, over the planes of his chest, clawing one nail over a long scar before moving up and up. She curled her fingers against his neck, her pulse pounding against her finger tips. She leaned forward, shifting her weight against his entrapped erection, pressing down causing him to gasp.
She pressed her fingers downward to grate her fingers against his skin, down his chest to his stomach, not gouging, not scratching, but feeling. As though she wanted to feel the texture of his body against her nails.
She leaned forward even more, and her body slid down. He stared up, the ceiling was a dark blur. He felt her breath before he felt her lips, soft and wet against the center of his chest.
She turned her head then and laid her cheek against him. "I missed you, Aoshi-sama."
How could she speak and think so sweetly like this? Didn't desire course through her as it did him? Didn't it feel the same for her? Didn't she want him inside her?
What did she want?
She lifted her head a moment later and sat up. He thought it was over, she was moving away, but instead of off and beside him, she moved down. She straddled his thighs as her slender fingers slipped beneath the thin tie of his sash. He lifted himself slightly and pulled it loose. She didn't react that he could tell, but he pictured her smiling at him.
He couldn't see if she was.
She managed to get it open and he could see enough of her to realize she had pulled it around her neck. His attention fell away from her when he felt her shy fingers pulling his robe open slowly, hesitantly. But she could see no better than him in this darkness, not even a ninja's eyes were good enough to see through darkness such as this…
"Misao!" he barked, his voice rough, strained.
"Should I stop?" she asked, her voice soft, as though she were embarrassed.
"No, don't… Don't stop."
He reached for her hips, but she caught his wrists with a quickness that made him realize how sluggish he really felt.
"Ah, ah!" she chided. "I want to touch you, Aoshi-sama. Let me do the touching. Your hands are too rough."
His hands were too rough? What did that mean? He decided he didn't care immediately what that meant when she shifted her hips slightly, dragging herself against him.
He trembled beneath her, his fingers digging into the linens beneath him as he fought not to grab her and...
She dragged herself against him again, downward.
He bit his lip hard trying not to catch his tongue between his teeth. How could she - he groaned as she began to move slow, up and down, dragging, a slow, grinding movement.
How could she tease him this way?
Didn't she crave him as he so badly did her?
This pleased her?
She stopped, her body shuddering against his and he groaned in disappointment.
"Misao…"
"Don't move Aoshi-sama..." she murmured softly.
She began to rock her hips against him once more and he groaned at her slow, teasing touches.
Her eyes drifted closed as she moved against him, his hips rising up beneath her, grinding himself against her as much as he could.
As her body slid higher, against the sensitive head of his arousal, his hands shot up from the linen and to her waist. She gasped, startled as he forced her down against him hard, their bodies mashing together.
He jerked her body against his roughly, their bodies jarring together hard until he groaned sharply and twitched.
Misao leaned down, tracing her fingers up his chest, surprised at sticky residue she found there. She slid her fingers through it curiously.
"Aoshi-sama," she began, pinching her fingers together. "What is this?"
He sighed.
Dawn escaped Aoshi. He woke in Misao's bed, his head a mess. She was curled up beside him sleeping peacefully, oblivious of his presence.
Misao had bad dreams about him, that he knew. She'd admitted so the previous night and she'd mentioned it to him before. He did not know what to do about bad dreams.
As far as he knew, there was no way to be rid of them. He'd been plagued with dreams of some sort for most of his adult life and never escaped them until something worse came along.
The only good dreams he ever had were dreams of his past at the Aoiya, when Misao was a child. He no longer knew how to feel about that. How he felt about knowing her as such a small girl.
Was he betraying the Okashira previous to himself? Misao's grandfather? Was he betraying that man's wishes for Misao, to care for her?
He felt as though he was and he wasn't.
His dalliances with Misao were shameful. They cast badly on both of them, but it was Misao who would bear the brunt of the guilt were they ever publicly exposed. If she became pregnant and was not married...
It would be his fault.
Quietly, he left her there, curled up in her bed.
He wasn't sorry to go. His ability to think clearly when beside her greatly diminished. He felt drunk around her at times, simply willing to concede to whatever she wanted as long as it was harmless.
He was a broken man.
He'd been a broken man from the first time he'd touched her. From the first time he'd pushed inside her in the forest.
That would forever be their moment of history stood still.
It would always be his, at least.
He returned to his room where he cleaned himself up and dressed for the day. Down the stairs and halfway to the door, he was stopped.
"Aoshi?"
He froze near the doorway, but didn't turn back. "Aa?"
He recognized Okina's voice and the distinct pitch of his disapproval. He was in trouble...
He hadn't been in trouble in ages.
He turned back and entered Okina's little study off the corridor and the old man followed.
The older man didn't sit but stared at him with a deep frown upon his face.
"Aoshi, it has come to my attention that you and Misao seem to be sharing a room?"
"No, we are not."
Okina raised a brow. "Do you deny then that you are having physical relations with her?"
"No."
His frown deepened. "It is inappropriate behavior and I will not willfully tolerate it. If you wish to be intimate with her, you must marry her."
Aoshi nodded. "Aa. Is that all?"
Okina blinked. "That's it? Do you intend to wed her?"
Aoshi turned toward the doorway. "Misao declined."
Misao woke to an empty room. She would've worried had he stayed and cuddled with her, but it was disappointing. She hadn't so much as decided on breakfast, let alone what to do with her day when Okina appeared before her, smiling.
"Good morning, precious. Sleep well?"
She frowned and sat down. Was he eluding to something?
"Same I guess," she answered.
She hadn't had any bad dreams, that was a plus. Her hips were slightly bruised from Aoshi grabbing her, that was a minus. The man needed restraints...
"We need to speak, Misao."
She nodded numbly. "I had nothing to do with whatever you found."
"No, no," he bristled. "This isn't about one of your practical jokes. I'm concerned about you and Aoshi."
Her head snapped up. "Me and Aoshi?" she repeated.
He nodded and sat down across from her. "Did he offer marriage to you?"
She thought. He had... sort of, hadn't he? Well, he hadn't made it sound like an offer of marriage, he was offering concessions and she didn't want those.
"Not really and sort of, why?"
"Did you truly say no? Is that not what you desired?"
She sighed. "It's not that easy, Jiya."
He stood, a glower upon his face. "Very well, but I expect the two of you to conduct yourselves like responsible adults. No more relations, do I make myself clear?"
She felt her face flush and she nodded, too embarrassed to say anything.
He walked off and she dry swallowed.
AN: I didn't post this before?