A/n: This chapter rated M, on account of the sex.

The wedding, he was told by the guests as they left the reception, had been perfect. He wouldn't know himself, having barely been present at his last one; he and Tomoe had exchanged hurried sips of sake while the nervous priest murmured a few words and then had them sign the register. It had taken less than an hour and he had been rabbit-scared under his stoicism, wanting to run and needing to stay, unable to believe his own choices.

This wedding had begun with a procession, long and winding through the shrine grounds, and he wouldn't have known that Kaoru was in it except that she was the bride and the bride wore white. She'd looked like a doll, or a princess in a portrait from an ancient text: all rich white fabric and powdered face and crimson lips. He'd watched her float across the courtyard and wished, for a brief moment, that she was in her training clothes with her hair pulled back and a shinai on her shoulder. Because he'd wanted his Kaoru, and this wasn't her.

And then she'd gotten close enough for him to see the lines of her face under the paint: the smile that her makeup couldn't hide and the bright joy gleaming in her eyes. He'd given the wish up immediately as unforgivably selfish and foolish, besides. She was happy: being here, doing this, with him, made her happy. She was happy to be his bride.

The thought had filled him with a terrified awe.

He had been jolted with the sudden and terrible conviction that he'd do something wrong. Stumble over his vows, or forget a step, or spill sake down his front. Something to spoil the day that she'd been looking forward to for so long and which he really had not been attentive enough about and then she was next to him at the entrance to the shrine and there was no more time.

The actual ceremony was a blur: he remembered her sitting next to him, radiating contentment; he remembered his master's fond smirk (and that had been an unexpected thing, to find him waiting to stand on the groom's side with a challenging brow, as though he expected something to be made of it). He remembered the smell of incense and the sweetest sake he'd ever tasted, and that he hadn't stumbled when he'd read the vows, and then the ceremony was over and he had not been required to attempt the western custom of a public kiss to seal the union.

Miss Sekihara had, however, arranged for the guests to engage in the western custom of pelting the newlyweds with uncooked rice as they left the shrine. Yahiko had found it particularly enjoyable, especially the fact that etiquette dictated that Kaoru ignore the very well-aimed clumps that rained down on her headdress. Kenshin had noted the gleam in her eye and sighed to himself. One day, Yahiko would learn a warrior's prudence. Today was not that day.

There had been a reception at the Akabeko: another barely remembered blur of faces and congratulations and polite formalities, when all he really wanted to do was get back home and come to grips with what had just occurred.

Of course, now that he was home he hadn't the faintest idea what to do next.

Kaoru was looking at him expectantly. She had every right to: he was the man and he had been married before and therefore, presumably, he had some idea how this all worked. But it had been over ten years, and there had only ever been the one night, long after the ceremony, in the calm wake of deadly secrets finally shared.

He had to say something, soon. So he resorted to the familiar:

"Shall this one prepare the bath, Kaoru?"

She blinked.

"Um…" Her head tilted, birdlike under her wedding garb. "If… if you want."

He nodded and almost left; then he turned back and took her hand, holding it tightly for a moment.

"You're beautiful," he said hurriedly, before his traitor tongue could trip him up, and felt the blood rush to his face. She looked up at him, flush with pleasure and the weight of her heavy clothes. Her lips parted slightly, round and soft under the powder and paint, and he wanted very badly to kiss her.

And he could. Fears and bloody hands be damned: she had chosen him.

So he did.

It was quick and shy, and she stilled under it like a bird caught between his hands. He could feel her heartbeat under her skin and smell her perfume – her true scent, still pulsing real and vital under all the costuming. His Kaoru, who he'd wanted for so long, and could finally have…

He drew back, not wanting to frighten her, and she stared up at him with her wide blue eyes. He was suddenly very conscious of the space between them, and took a step back.

"I'll – I'll just go and – and see to the bath now, that I will," he managed to fumble out before he fled for the relative safety of the bathhouse.

Warm steam drifted from the slats in the bathhouse window as Kenshin fed wood into the fire.

"How's the temperature?" he called up.

"Fine," Kaoru replied. Water splashed. "Um… are you coming in?"

"Ah…" he had a sudden image of her stretched out in the tub, the lines of her naked body broken by the rippling water. She liked her baths very hot; she would be flushed and sweating, thin strands of hair sticking to her forehead and temples. She'd tilt her head back as she relaxed into the heat, lips parting, and droplets would run down the curve of her neck, caressing her shoulder blades and her collarbone and the valley between her breasts…

"Would you like me to?" he asked weakly.

"Well… we are married now…"

"So we are. I'm coming in, then," he said, before he could think too hard about it, and went into the bathhouse.

The screen between the changing and bathing rooms was closed. He paused outside it, uncertain.

"Kaoru?"

"Y – yes?"

"Do you…?" He cleared his throat and tried again. "I mean. Shall I – join you, or…?"

"Um." There was a pause, as though she had to catch her breath or swallow. "Could you just – could you stay there? For a while?"

The sound of moving water, and he guessed that she was shifting in the tub, splashing water onto the loose-slatted floor.

"I thought – I thought I had prepared myself but I'm really, really – I'm nervous, and I want to, but I don't – well, it's – "

She spoke in a wild rush, and he could imagine the slow blush creeping up her chest to her cheeks and how her fingers were twining and catching around each other. He wanted to take her hands – he did every time she twisted them – and hold them, lace his fingers with hers and promise things he wasn't sure he could deliver. That it wouldn't hurt. That there was nothing to be afraid of. That she would enjoy it. That everything would be okay.

He sat down on the bench just next to the screen.

"It's fine, Kaoru," he said, after he took a stabilizing breath. "To tell you the truth, I may be a little nervous, too."

"…really?"

He nodded, remembered that she couldn't see him, and made an affirmative noise. No more hiding, he reminded himself.

"What do you have to be nervous about?" she asked, and he detected a distinct hint of indignation in the question. It made him smile.

"Well, it's been some time, so it has," he said carefully, not sure how to begin. "And – you are very beautiful." And the last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt or frighten her, but he had been aching for her for so long now…

"…oh." A pause. "You mean… oh."

She was quiet long enough that he began to worry that he'd said something wrong.

"Kaoru?" he ventured. "Is that…?"

He wasn't sure how to finish that sentence. Wrong? Upsetting? Unexpected?

"No, nothing's wrong," she said quickly. "Nothing at all. I just – nevermind."

He blinked, sitting forward a little.

"It's just that, I mean, I don't know a lot. About. Um. What you did in the past. After the Revolution, I mean. You know. So I thought, sometimes, that maybe – anyway, I guess I was wrong. So nevermind."

"Ah." He settled back onto the bench, bemused, and was about to say something when she said, very quietly.

"I thought that maybe that was, you know, why you didn't – because maybe you liked – you were waiting for me to become more, more feminine, or cute, or elegant, or something…"

Kenshin exhaled as though he'd taken a blow.

"Kaoru…" he shook his head, forgetting again that she couldn't see him. "That's not so."

"Well, I know that now." She sounded annoyed at herself. The water splashed again, and he resisted the urge to slide open the screen and check on her. "But I wasn't sure…"

"Are you sure now?"

She hummed. "I guess so."

"That doesn't sound very sure."

"I know…"

"I do love you, you know," he added, surprised at how easy it was to say.

"I love you," he said again, simply because he could, and wished there was word large enough for it.

The water slapped against the sides of the tub and he heard her footsteps on the slats. The screen slid open and she was standing in front of him, still wet from the bath. She was flushed from the heat and the conversation; droplets of water swelled and rolled down her exposed skin, falling to the floor or soaking into the cloth of the bathrobe that she hadn't bothered to tie but held loosely at her breastbone. Her eyes were wide and sparkling and fixed on him and all the breath left his body in one disbelieving whoosh, because she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and he wanted her as much as he'd ever wanted anything.

"…Kenshin…"

She took a step towards him, her free hand leaving the screen and going to twist around the hand that held her robe together. He stood up and closed the space between them, curling his hands around hers and easing them apart to hold them tightly in his own. Her bathrobe fell open, revealing a strip of winter-pale skin, and he couldn't stop his eyes from roaming, drinking in every stolen view.

"I love you. Kenshin," she breathed, and stepped so close that she was pressed flush against him. Whether by accident or design, she had taken a thin summer robe into the bath, and water and sweat and steam had drenched the cotton so that it clung to her like gauze and she might as well have been wearing nothing at all.

He let go of her hands and kissed her. Not shy, not soft. He kissed her the way he'd wanted to after the fight with Jin'e and almost every day since then: fierce and reverent and aching. One of his hands tangled in her hair and the other pressed into the small of her back. For a moment he thought she might pull away, and then her arms wrapped around his neck and she was pulling him down into her and kissing him back.

Somehow they made it to the bedroom, stumbling and stealing kisses and clutching each at each other every other step. She was warm and fit perfectly against him, and when they finally crossed the threshold he had just enough sense to pull her on top of him as they fell onto the futon so that she wouldn't get hurt. She leaned over him and kissed him again, hard.

"Too many clothes," she muttered, pulling at his wedding kimono. "Not fair."

He ran his hands over her shoulders, down her back, and squeezed her hips lightly before giving in and helping her get his clothes off. She straddled him as soon as they were gone, her bathrobe completely open and draping on either side of their bodies like a curtain. He stared at her, taking in the swell of her breasts and the lean curve of her waist, the delicate hollow of her clavicle and the dark thatch of hair at the delta of her thighs.

"Oh, Kaoru…" he whispered hoarsely.

She ducked her head – a little shy even now – and bent over him, her long dark hair hanging loose over both of them and shutting out the world.

"Um – is this alright?" she asked. "Being like this – I want to see you. And touch…"

Her fingers brushed against his unmarked cheek and he closed his eyes for a long breath, asserting control, before he brought his hands to rest on her hips, under the robe this time and skin-against-skin, stroking his fingers over the smooth knob of bone.

"Anything's fine," he said quietly. "Anything at all."

She smiled then, sudden as a sunrise, and kissed the corner of his mouth. Then she kissed each of his eyes when they fluttered closed as he moaned, because the fingers of her free hand had found his nipple and were playing with it, brushing and stroking in tentative circles.

"Kaoru…"

She stopped. Why did she stop? He forced his eyes open.

"Sorry," she said, blushing. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," he murmured. "No, not at all. Don't stop. Please."

"…okay."

She bent her head to his throat. He traced abstract patterns up and down her back and buried his fingers in her hair, gasping, as she found some sensitive place right where his neck joined his shoulder that he hadn't even known existed until that moment. She kept exploring and he touched every part of her that he could reach: her hair, her face, her shoulders, stroking and soothing and shaking with desire.

She paused when she reached his hips, running one hand over his thigh, and he realized what she was considering about half a second before her delicate hand closed over his cock. He shot up into a half-sitting position, reaching out to cup her face and stroke back errant strands of hair.

"Kaoru… you don't have to…"

She looked up at him, curious and challenging, and he couldn't breathe.

"…but I want to," she said simply.

Her hands and mouth enveloped him. His head fell back and he started – he didn't know what he was doing: talking, pleading, she was taking him apart and putting him back together and he hadn't known it could be like this, that she could desire him this way. If he'd known then he never would have been able to resist her. He never should have held out: he should have kissed her that first night, the first time he'd wanted to, as she'd lain sprawled and breathless in his arms and smiled at him like he was the center of her world. He fisted his hands in the blankets, drawn taunt as a bowstring, and prayed there would be something left of him when she was done.

"Oh god, Kaoru, wait…"

Too late. The bowstring snapped. He groaned deep in his chest as warmth shot through him and the world coalesced around her, her mouth on him and her hair brushing against his thighs and her hands kneading his hips as he reached out for her, hands grasping, wanting her close to him. She pulled back, startled, and looked up him with wide eyes.

"Is that – that's supposed to happen, right?"

It took a moment for him to understand that she'd spoken, and another to figure out what she'd said. He laughed; he couldn't help it.

"Yes – although, not so quickly as that, or so I'd hoped." He drew her up and kissed her. "Although… here, let me…"

He eased the robe off her shoulders and she shrugged out of it, tossing it into the same corner that his own crumpled clothing lay in. She let him coax her down onto the futon and he propped himself up on his elbows, leaning over her, smiling like an idiot and not particularly caring as a deep lassitude sunk into his bones.

"But – doesn't that mean we're done?"

He nuzzled along her jaw, tasting the sweat and desire on her skin, and purred. The edge was off, now, and he could focus on her – on the things he didn't know yet and wanted desperately to find out, like how her strong legs would feel wrapped around him and how she would taste when she went over the brink.

"No. Not done at all."

"Oh…"

She sighed, then, and he ran his hand down her side from her breast to her hip, daring to nip at that graceful collarbone. She squeaked and flushed and her hips pumped once.

"Good?"

"Oh – yes," she breathed, and his fingers curled into her skin. He could smell her: salt and heady want, and for him. She clung to him as he lowered his head to her breasts, mouthing carefully along the soft flesh to find more places that would make her gasp. He found plenty, and she combed her fingers into his hair deeply enough that his ponytail came undone as she squirmed and panted under him.

"Kenshin…" She sounded immensely frustrated and he bit back a chuckle.

"Turnabout's fair play," he murmured, tracing across her abdomen and enjoying the twitch of muscle under her skin. He bent to kiss the hollow of her hip, then followed the crease of her thigh down to her center and tasted her. She cried out at his touch; he went slowly, attentive to the jumps of her hips and the pressure of her hands in his hair. His Kaoru didn't have much patience with gentle: she liked things firm and furious, and the harder he pushed her, the more strongly she responded. So he hooked her legs over his shoulders and drank from her like a man dying of thirst, discovering – to his surprise – that he really, really liked it when she pulled his hair.

She stiffened and started to flood over his tongue, whimpering. He drew back quickly and replaced his mouth with his hands, wanting to see her. He had yearned towards her when his climax came; she fell back during hers, bucking and almost sobbing as her arms covered her face. He kept the rhythm going with slow, circular touches as she caught her breath and relaxed, drawing the tips of her fingers down her face as though checking to make sure everything was still there.

"…oh."

He stretched out on top of her, trailing his hand across her stomach.

"Oh?"

"I – wow." She took a shuddering breath. "So that's what all the fuss is about."

He stared at her for a second, then dropped his head onto her shoulder and laughed. She shoved at him, glaring.

"It's not funny!"

He kissed her shoulder.

"I love you. And it's not funny." Another kiss. "It's perfect. You're perfect." A third. "Kaoru-mine."

He kissed her lips, then, deep and desiring, and stirred against the soft skin of her belly. His hips jerked instinctively and she rose to meet him, pulling him close.

"Then why did you laugh?" she demanded. He could hear her irritation fading rapidly into desire and kissed her again: the corner of her mouth, the bridge of her nose, the place on her hairline just beyond her temple.

"Because I love you, and I never – I didn't expect this. You're always surprising me." He cradled her face in his hands, light-headed. She was warm and yielding under him, twining her arms around his neck and wiggling upwards a little, searching for him. Wanting him. He pulled away from her a little, to give her more freedom to move.

"Is that good?" she asked breathily.

"I told you – it's perfect." He nuzzled the curve of her neck, biting a little just to feel her shudder and hear her moan.

"So – are we going to – you know – properly?"

"Properly?" He mimicked her tone, smiling against her skin. "Was what we just did improper, Kaoru-mine?"

She slapped his shoulder lightly. "Oh, you know what I mean!"

"I do at that," he mused, nibbling his way up and down her throat and enjoying her little gasps, and way she kneaded at him. "Are you sure?"

She took a shuddering breath. "I – I want to. I want to – feel you. Um." Her voice lowered until she was almost whispering. "Inside..."

Blood roared in his ears and he crushed his mouth to hers, pulling her hips up and down and then – oh, there she was. And there he was, with her, within her. Sword and sheath. He gasped in her ear, murmuring incoherent praise, and she rolled her hips to settle him inside her, breathing hot and heavy across his temple.

"Oh – oh, I didn't know – "

He closed his eyes while she figured out what to do with her legs, pressing his face to hers as she wrapped them tight around his waist, holding him close.

"Ah. Kaoru…"

She moaned his name and clutched at his shoulders and they began to move, as though they were one creature long-separated and finally rejoined. He slid a hand under her hip, lifting it for a better angle and there, that made her arch and cry out, that was what she needed and he needed her to be like this, writhing and moving in time with him as they pressed frantic kisses on each other. He fell down on one forearm, his auburn hair falling around them in a veil, and pushed harder and deeper into her and she rose to meet him every time until his world exploded, again, and he knew by her cries and the slowing rhythm of her body under him that she had followed soon after.

He had just enough energy and presence of mind to roll off her instead of collapsing. She helped him pull the blankets up from the bottom of the futon – both of them were shaking – and as soon as they were both covered he fell back onto the pillow, curling around her and sighing. He felt boneless, graceless and loose, wrung-out and empty and beyond caring about anything except the woman in his arms and never, if he had any say in it, leaving again. She burrowed into his chest, planting a single kiss above his heart like a brand.

"Thank you," he heard her say after a few moments

"…what for…?" he asked muzzily, already half-asleep.

"Loving me," she said. He pressed a kiss in her hair.

"Thank you," he murmured. "For the same."

They slept late the next morning, until their growling stomachs wouldn't let them sleep any longer, and even then it seemed like too much effort to cook. So they lay on the porch and fed each other leftovers from the reception and the last of the dried winter fruit, stopping occasionally to pluck cherry blossom petals out of each other's hair.