Thank you to my precious reviewers! :)
Ok, I really struggled with this one on how to include enough information for the story without being lewd. So, I hope I've found a good balance; expect references to heat-of-the-moment but no explicit descriptions.
**EDIT 2018**
Extreme lewdness re-inserted in short but intense doses. (Skip the flashback if you want to avoid it.)
**END EDIT**
Disclaimer: I own nothing; etc.
"Did I do something to piss you off?" Ino demanded.
"No."
"Was I that terrible in bed?"
"It was great sex."
"Is someone cock-blocking for me?"
"Not that I know of."
"Then you're just that arrogant?"
"Beg pardon?"
"Don't try to play games with me! You obviously don't give a damn about anyone but yourself!"
"Of course I give a damn," Genma muttered, staring flatly into her angry eyes.
"Coulda fooled me!" Ino hissed.
Genma didn't bother to respond.
After Shikamaru and Kakashi's interview with the receptionist, Shikamaru had decided to take a break instead of jumping straight into the next interrogation. After all, we seem to be going for the idea that we have all the time in the world, not the idea that we're desperate for information. Another bonus of waiting, as he'd pointed out to Kakashi, was that it would give him more time to study the scientist and the chuunin in order to plan his strategy for them.
Now, Chouji and Shikamaru were just getting a fire started while Sakura and Kakashi looked around for unsuspecting rabbits or birds. Seeing that the most necessary tasks were already being taken care of, Ino had asked Genma "for a word," and the two of them were now standing in the relative darkness that follows the sunset, surrounded by trees a few yards from camp.
He continued to stare blankly at her, giving nothing away by his expression as hers gradually grew more and more impatient. After several long, tense seconds of this icy staring contest, she tried again.
"Oh, I get it. You give a damn about your job."
Genma rolled his eyes and shifted his senbon to the other side of his mouth. "What is this about, Ino? You're pissed because I haven't come running back to you since you threw yourself at me?"
Her bright blue eyes flashed in the darkness. "You certainly didn't seem to mind me throwing myself at you at the time! And no, I didn't expect you to come 'running back'." She paused for a calming breath, and he waited. "But I wasn't expecting the cold shoulder, either."
He was silent for a split second too long while he organized his response, and she jumped in before she realized he had been about to say anything.
"Dammit, Genma, answer me! Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about, either. I wake up to find you gone after a great night, don't hear from you for two days or even see you around, and then when we have to go on the same mission, you talk to Shikamaru like an equal and treat me like a liability! What the fuck!? If you hate me that much now, why did you even block that kunai for me today?"
She wasn't even trying very hard to keep her voice down now, but at least she wasn't screeching like she probably would have if they'd been having this conversation in Konoha.
"That kunai shouldn't have needed blocking."
Her eyebrows shot up for a split second, then her eyes narrowed to a thin line to match her mouth. "You gave me a bad order," she hissed in defense, raising her hands to shove him in the chest.
The next instant, she was pinned against a very large tree, facing it with Genma at her back. She gasped and tried to struggle, but he had both of her wrists pinned firmly in the small of her back with the bone of his other wrist on the back of her neck, as he would if he were holding a kunai to her throat.
"You're supposed to think about the orders you receive, so that you can carry them out effectively. It was not a bad order; that chip on your shoulder was blocking your view. That kind of mistake is exactly what makes you a liability. People get killed over things like that."
She stopped struggling, because his voice was rough and intense, and not in the good way. She couldn't escape if she wanted to, she realized. She swallowed nervously, and he continued.
"Then why did you block it?" she grit out through her teeth.
"Because I do give a damn," he hissed in her ear. "You're right; I don't especially care about your feelings. I give a damn about my team, and making sure they stay alive."
Ino's stomach clenched and she tried to shake him off one more time, but he pushed her a little harder against the tree.
"And liability or not, you're on my team. That's why I blocked it."
Ino's eyes started to sting, so she pushed her cheek into the tree and farther from his line of sight. "I am not a liability! I'm a chunin, just like Shikamaru, and a medic on top of that, like Sakura, who you also happen to treat with a little more respect."
"That's your problem? Respect?" His tone was still quiet and harsh, and the discomfort his firm grip was causing on her wrists and neck was getting close to actual pain.
Ino hesitated, then nodded against the rough bark. I shouldn't have tried to shove him, she realized. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and he could probably feel it where his chest was so close to her back.
"Shikamaru has earned my respect. He's still got some things to work on, but he cares about people more than he cares about himself and he's got the intelligence to protect them. Sakura works around the clock as a fulltime member of Kakashi's team, the hospital staff, and the Hokage's apprentice, and her hard work shows. They're both focused on their goals, and they don't compromise those goals when something more fun comes along. You, though…" He paused and she winced. "You gave up information because you were horny."
~~~Flashback~~~
Ino arched her hips upward from her position facedown on the bed. He was so close to entering her! He was rubbing his cock between her ass cheeks, teasing her. He was being so infuriating about this game of his!
He'd been rock hard for several minutes already, and she'd tried every trick she knew to convince him to just abandon the game already and screw her brains out.
Genma leaned forward and started kissing and sucking his way down the base of the back of her neck, down her right shoulderblade, then down her spine and back up to her left ear.
"Tell me the card," he whispered gently between kisses.
"It's a stupid game, Genma. Please, just put your cock in me!" She wiggled her bare behind for emphasis, and he groaned softly.
"Stupid or not, we made a deal. The card?"
He was going to make her choose between a good pounding and her bragging rights. So what if she hadn't managed to make him come first, or to convince him to forget the game? The card was just a way to prove that he couldn't make her beg…that he couldn't make her rearrange her priorities in the heat of the moment…but really, how high on her list of priorities could a stupid card be? Especially when his delicious, hard, throbbing cock was right there between her ass cheeks, and they both wanted for it to be somewhere just a little more feminine…
"Five of hearts, okay?" she panted in the moonlight. "Now fuck me already!"
Genma paused to suck at an especially tender spot on her neck while he reached toward the nightstand, and Ino started to panic a little on the inside. He wouldn't really…would he? Surely he's forgotten by now…
"Five of hearts? You sure?"
Damn! Ino hesitated a fraction of a second, then nodded. Genma raised one eyebrow.
"Remember, if you're lying, we're both going to be really disappointed…" He pushed his hips forward, letting her feel the smooth slide of skin against skin between her ass cheeks, until his balls were just brushing her dripping entrance. Then he slid back down, and to Ino's great delight, reached down and positioned himself so that his tip was aligned with her entrance. "Mmmm," he ground out, "I really hope you're telling me the truth." He pressed against her just enough to make her lose coherency a little.
He started to push himself up slightly to look at the card, and Ino panicked. He really was going to check!
"Spades!" she blurted out.
Genma paused, looking at her with the card half-way flipped over in his hand. "Hm?"
"Spades," she moaned. "Five of spades."
He watched her carefully for another half second, then looked at the card. It was indeed the five of spades. He smiled a sort of half smile that would have been impossible to read even if Ino had been paying attention to his face at this point, then he tossed the card haphazardly to the floor and shoved into her exactly as hard as she wanted him to, the "game" finally forgotten.
~~~End Flashback~~~
"How was that supposed to make me respect you?"
"It was just a damn card in a damn game, Genma!" she whispered, and the water that had been building up in her eyes finally slipped out and rolled down her cheek. She squeezed her eyes shut to prevent any more from coming. If he noticed, he didn't give any sign of it.
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe the game was supposed to be something more than that, to show you that you are not invulnerable to being seduced just because you claim to be so fucking good at it."
He let go of her hands and released the pressure from the back of her neck. When she felt him take a step back, she squeezed her eyes one last time and opened them, then turned around to see him standing with his thumbs hooked in his pockets. "Maybe if you'd picked up on that and learned your lesson," he said, "I'd have a little more respect for you now."
She crossed her arms, willing the last bit of extra water in her eyes to go away. "And maybe if you could let sex just be sex, you wouldn't have such a prickly stick up your ass!"
His eyes narrowed. "Sex is never just sex," he said after a brief pause. "It's always a power game, or a means to an end, or using the other person for something good or bad."
Ino swallowed, studying his eyes intently for any sign or trace of insincerity or doubt or compromise. He held her gaze steadily, though, and she exhaled with a little more force than normal. "You really believe that, don't you?" she whispered after watching him for a few extra seconds.
He didn't flinch at all when he answered. "Yes. I do."
"That's so…" Ino searched for the word she was looking for, still searching his face for any change. "That's so...sad," she finally breathed. "If you don't believe in romance or fun, why do you bother with it?"
Genma's face finally softened, just a bit. "I do believe in fun," he said. "I like sex. Quite a lot actually." One eyebrow and the same corner of his mouth tried to twitch upward out of habit, but he otherwise kept his expression cool and distant. Ino frowned and tilted her head as if she was going to fire another question at him, but he stopped her with a meaningful raise of both eyebrows and a dip of his senbon. "What I don't trust," he said, "are motives."
Ino blinked and her forehead creased as she tried to process his words. When she couldn't immediately make sense of them, she waited for him to continue.
He switched the senbon to the other side of his mouth before he spoke again. "People can use each other for fun, for a rush, or to just blow off steam. Or for a pleasant distraction from a sucky life. Or for real comfort, if you're lucky enough to find a partner you can really trust."
"But never for actual love?"
"Don't kid yourself, kunoichi. That kind of love doesn't exist for people like us." Genma paused again, and Ino frowned. "The risk comes, though, when you don't actually know what they're using you for."
He gave her the opportunity to speak again, but she didn't. He took a deliberate breath.
"Hidden motives are dangerous," he said. "You think the other person's there for the same reason you are, things get hot, then suddenly there's something going on that you didn't consent to. A change in the power dynamic, or taking emotionally what you're not prepared to give, or in the worst cases, taking advantage of your most distracted moment to make you betray your village or to kill you."
Ino swallowed again. "Don't you think you're a little hyper-vigilant about the interrogation and assassination attempts?"
Genma shrugged with his lips and the senbon twitched. "In some ways. I know it's not exactly likely on any given night. But the one time you let your guard down is the one time things go horribly wrong."
Ino chose her next words very carefully. "Did something happen to you to make you think like this?" she asked slowly.
Genma moved his hands from his pockets to cross his arms over his chest. "I've personally seen a lot of different people die in a lot of different ways," he finally said.
"Has anyone ever tried to kill you in bed?" she asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer even as the question passed her lips.
Genma locked his eyes on hers and flicked the tip of his senbon in her direction. "What do you think?"
Ino called to memory the night she'd spent with him. He'd had two of those "most vulnerable moments" he seemed to be referring to, and she replayed those moments in her mind with a special analytical focus on his actions.
The first time had been when she was still trying to win the game, and she'd shown him her own mouth-based skills. He'd held her wrists tightly where she was supporting herself against his hipbones, and he hadn't let go until he was fully aware of himself once again. The second time, he'd had her face down on the bed, and as she thought about it in retrospect, she realized she probably couldn't have moved even if she'd wanted to.
He pinned me both times, and I didn't even realize it! That means… Her eyes widened, and in their eyelock she saw his eyes darken just enough to silently confirm her epiphany. She gasped quietly.
"I…I shouldn't have asked that," she murmured, breaking her gaze away from his. "It's none of my business." She shifted her weight on her feet, now ready to get back to camp as soon as possible and out of this conversation that she was so ready to be finished with.
He continued to study her silently until the air got too heavy, then he shifted on his feet as well. "Talk to me about respect when you can maintain your priorities. I was totally up front with you about my motives, and you were about yours. You couldn't change my mind, so you changed yours and then got pissy about it."
Ino could think of nothing more to say, so she stayed silent.
After a long moment, he broke the stillness in a casual voice. "Head back to camp," he told her, already turning to the side. "I'm gonna double check the traps, then I'll be back too."
Ino's mouth felt dry, so she didn't give her normal "hai." Instead, she just nodded, then turned to walk back toward the campfire, rubbing her wrists absently as her feet carried her forward.
. . .
"Everything ok?" Shikamaru asked with some resign in his voice when Genma settled himself beside him near the crackling campfire.
"Yeah, better now actually, I think. Apparently she has an off button."
"Hn," Shikamaru winced. This is getting to be troublesome. I really don't want to know these things.
Genma chuckled when he realized what Shikamaru thought he meant. "Not like that," he reassured him. "I'll spare you those details. I just mean our little chat got a little too real, and she decided it was 'none of her business'."
Shikamaru gawked incredulously at the grinning senbon user. "You got Ino to say something was none of her business?"
Genma just smirked around his senbon and pulled out a kunai to sharpen, and Shikamaru shifted his focus to the captives still tied to their various stumps on opposite sides of the camp.
Phew. Ok. Poor Genma...shinobi grow up fast, don't they? And poor Ino for taking him on. And poor, poor scientist and enemy chuunin for the situation they'll find themselves in next chapter. :)
Review please?