Chapter 17
Strains of music drifted by, just on the edge of hearing. Rin dozed in a warm, safe cocoon, her dreams half-formed and insubstantial. Something nudged her from the edge of sleep to wakefulness.
She was lying on a hard surface strewn with gravel (how had she thought that was comfortable?), her head pillowed on something soft yet firm. Where in the hell was she? Opening her eyes, Rin saw with a start the curve of a pale jaw and a fall of jet black hair: Hiei. His eyes were softly closed, ink-dark lashes lying in a fan across his cheeks. The two of them were still on the hotel's rooftop, the sky above a midnight blanket strewn with stars.
Hiei, fearsome master of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame and champion of the Dark Tournament, was asleep. He looked so innocent, so young, so different from his waking self. His face was slack and soft, peaceful, all the usual tension drained away. Rin wanted to just observe him: study the lines of his face, listen to the breath flowing in and out of his chest, count the pale freckles on his cheeks.
But as soon as that thought crossed her mind, one of his crimson eyes opened and slid to her. She flinched back and hurriedly pushed herself to one elbow to get up. God, had she drooled on him? How long had she been asleep? Had her makeup run? Rin could feel the embarrassed flush on her cheeks starting to make headway down her neck. Before she could make her exit, his arm tightened around her, keeping her curled up against him. She fell still.
"In Demon World, staring at someone like that would get you killed," he said in a half-teasing, half-serious growl that sent a thrill all the way down to her toes. She was suddenly very conscious of the way the length of her body was pressed against his.
Rin looked away, her blush turning positively incandescent. "I'm sorry. Um." She paused, gathered herself, decided a change of subject was prudent, said, "I should, uh, go now. Uh. Wash my face. Maybe go back to the reception." Stupid, stupid, don't leave, one part of her yelled. Not when things are getting interesting. The other, more nervous part of her wanted to get away from the situation as fast as possible. Was she insane? Whatever had happened earlier between them had been fun, but this was Hiei they were talking about.
"Why would you want to do that?" he asked with a smug half-smile that showed one sharp fang.
"Um," Rin said, flummoxed by his matter-of-fact question. Then: "You don't want to go back to the party?"
Hiei scoffed, pinned her with his fiery red stare, and said simply, with all the self-important seriousness of Hiei at his most Hiei, "I don't like people."
Rin barked a laugh in surprise, burying her face in his shoulder. She couldn't help it. If that was not the truest, most obvious statement Hiei had ever made, she didn't know what else it could be.
"That was not supposed to be funny."
She stifled another startled giggle, then pushed herself to a seated position. His arm fell away, leaving a forlorn coldness in its wake.
She stretched, feeling her joints pop. "I think I'm getting too old for this. Ugh, I'm so stiff."
Hiei sat up beside her. "I sleep wherever I please. And I never wake up in pain. You humans and your fragile bodies." He sniffed derisively.
"Don't make me start the 'sleeping in trees' argument again," Rin said, grinning at him sidelong as she ducked her chin and wiped carefully at the delicate, tender skin around her eyes, hoping to erase any errant raccoon-eye smudges from crying and then sleeping in her makeup. "A bed is better than a tree or a rooftop any day. Besides, what is all that rough sleeping doing to your back? It's not good for you."
"I'm a demon; I have no need of your human comforts," he said, raising his chin, straightening his shoulders, and looking off into the distance like a proud, ascetic martyr.
"Yeah, sure, whatever you say," Rin said, rolling her eyes. It was like he thought even touching something soft might literally kill him. Or worse, turn him into a weak human.
The silence stretched for a few moments, but then a thought came to her.
"I've been wondering," she said, eyeing him. "How did you find me in the first place? It's not like I gave Botan my forwarding address."
Hiei looked away, but Rin refused to let him off the hook. Her stare burned a hole in the side of his head until he finally mumbled, embarrassed, "I can always sense you."
"What?" She blanched. This was a facet of his power that she had no idea about. If he could sense her all the time, well, she really wasn't sure how she felt about it. Was he doing it on purpose? If he couldn't control it, did that make it any better? What about her privacy? Had he been spying on her all these years, keeping tabs?
He held his hands up defensively at the unnerved expression on her face. "My Jagan Eye is immensely powerful, but not so great that I know where you are at all times. I have to concentrate to truly feel your energy signature, but it's there, in the back of my mind. It's no different with Urameshi and Kurama, or my sister."
"Huh, never knew that," Rin mused, filing that away for later and feeling a little better about the whole thing. "So what? You realized the wedding was a few days away, searched for me last minute, and decided to surprise me at my job?"
The fire demon huffed and crossed his arms. "Don't give me that look, girl. It wasn't on purpose. I found you at that… book warehouse," he said the words with extreme distaste, "but I'll remind you that I was generous enough to wait until you left for the day."
"You realize I'm a librarian, right?" Rin asked, raising an eyebrow. "I literally hang around books for forty hours a week. It's my whole job."
Hiei stewed for a moment, then narrowed his eyes. "In Demon World, books are less than worthless. Can't eat them. The best you can do is burn them. Or use them as projectiles, I suppose."
She snorted involuntarily and opened her mouth to reply, but before she could, he said, with genuine curiosity, "You, a librarian, of all things. Why in all the hells would you waste your time with books?"
"Well, unlike certain demons I know, some of us have to work," Rin said, shrugging. "Besides, I like books, and I like helping people."
He looked mystified, but Rin left him to chew on her reply. It wasn't up to her to explain the importance and value of libraries to a half-wild, barely-literate demon, but perhaps eventually he could be persuaded. She got up, dusted off her dress, and walked to the edge of the roof, keeping well back from the drop to the patio below. Music and lights came from the open doors to the reception hall, while on the patio a few couples sat around the fire pits talking. Rin spotted Shizuru and her date snuggling in one of the loveseats, a thin ribbon of smoke rising from the cigarette in Shizuru's mouth.
"All right everyone," Jorge's voice squawked to life on the loudspeakers below, "this is our last song of the evening! Last song of the night, folks, so make it count!"
The end of the night? Couldn't be. What time was it? Rin's phone was in her handbag under their table in the reception hall, and she never wore a watch. She must have napped on the rooftop for longer than she thought.
The first few bars of a slow, romantic song floated up from the open patio doors. Most of the couples got up and headed inside for their last hurrah of the night.
She felt a presence behind her and turned to see Hiei, his black suit jacket slung over one shoulder, watching her with trepidation and something else she couldn't put her finger on. Behind her, the drop to the patio below yawned at her back; the moon gazed down as it always did, its face radiating silver light when it wasn't obscured with clouds.
"What is it?" she asked him, apprehensive. Her thoughts ran to marauding demons and cataclysmic natural disasters.
"Last song of the night," he said meaningfully. His crimson eyes, faintly luminescent with reflected starlight, were locked on her face, willing her to understand what he was leaving unspoken. But whatever he was implying, her brain was beyond exhausted and she just didn't get it.
Hiei sighed and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "You're going to make me say it, aren't you?" He growled in annoyance and shook his head. Emotions warred across his face. After a few moments, he tossed his jacket aside, offered a hand, and said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it, "Rin. Dance with me?"
A shock ran through her, both at his question and at the unexpected sound of her name. For a moment she stared at his proffered hand like it might bite her.
As if in a dream, she put her hand in his. Gently, so gently, Hiei drew her close. Distantly she marveled that the strong, battle-hungry demon was even capable of being tender or gentle at all.
This rooftop dance between them was not the stiff practice of a few days (was it only a few days?) ago. She could feel every one of his fingertips pressing into her skin as individual coals, the intensity in his scarlet eyes scorching all her thoughts to ashes. This time her feet had no trouble following where he led. Rin let go of her anxiety, of her need to be in control, and trusted him to lead her, relaxing totally into his arms. She realized she was staring at him and had the irrational, embarrassed urge to look away, wanted to keep gazing into his eyes, both thought she should resist and couldn't quite resist the mesmerizing electricity building between them.
As they turned, her hand crept along his shoulder, her fingers skimming over his shirt collar and curling into the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. He shivered at her touch, and a distant part of her wondered if her skin felt cool to the fire demon. And if it did, whether it felt pleasant, like a cool shower on the hottest day of the summer, or shocking, like being dropped into an ice bath.
The music swelled. He released her but for their clasped hands. With a gentle push he sent her whirling away across the roof, a spinning top at the end of his arm, then pulled her into his embrace so that her back was flush with his chest.
"Oh wow," she said, breathless and off kilter, distracted by the heat of his lean body on hers, his warm breath on her neck, his arms around her, the scent of his skin. "Where did you learn that?"
Hiei chuckled, and she felt the sound vibrating through his chest. "I 'borrowed' your laptop. Found all sorts of interesting things."
She opened her mouth to interrogate him about that, but before she could he turned her to face him again. Instead of the formal waltz position that they had learned together, bodies spaced carefully apart, Hiei held her close against his chest as they swayed. His hands roamed over her back, her bare shoulders, skimmed her collarbones and neck, leaving trails of flames in their wake. She blushed, looking down and away, her heart pounding.
Hiei tilted her chin up with two fingertips. There was a perfect, frozen moment as they gazed at each other. Rin couldn't breathe. She was drowning in his eyes, hungry eyes that wanted to devour her. There was a flash of blazing ruby before he dipped her back over one knee and kissed her. Soft at first and then more insistent, he drank her in, one hand wandering lower and lower down her back and the other cupping her face. She wanted to touch all of him, run her hands over every part of his body. Deepening the kiss, she wound her arms around his neck, pressing herself up into him, her body on fire with his touch.
Long moments later, she broke for air as he pulled them upright. Rin stared at him as though hypnotized, drunk on the feeling of his callouses rasping over her skin, the touch of his lips, and the press of his lean, muscular form, every molecule of her alight with want.
The song ended, plunging them into sudden silence. As he held her gaze, Hiei cupped her cheek and slowly dragged his thumb over her bottom lip, sending flames of pleasure licking along her body. She shivered, gazing into his eyes like he was the only thing keeping her anchored to the earth. She wanted, needed, and this time she refused to be stopped by interfering ferry girls or nefarious demons or nosey Spirit Detectives.
"Come to my room?" she whispered, holding his gaze.
Hiei bared his teeth in a feral grin and swept her into his arms, cradling her close to his chest, and leapt into the night. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body as close to him as possible, but this time she wasn't afraid. This time she didn't scream in fear. She nuzzled her face into his neck, burning with anticipation and need, feeling the exhilaration of the wind on her face, the drop in her stomach as they flew, and the shift of his blazing muscles against her skin, the only thing between them a few layers of fabric. He landed on the balcony of her hotel room and set her carefully on her feet, only to press her against the cool glass of the sliding door.
His lips landed on her neck while he captured both her wrists with one hand and held them above her head, pinning her in place. His other hand slipped a dress strap off her shoulder; he kissed and nipped every inch of revealed skin, leaving her breathless with pleasure and need, then shoved a leg between hers with a growl. Her knees went weak.
"Inside," she gasped. "Please."
Hiei slid the door open and they tumbled toward the bed, tangled in each other, the scent of woodsmoke and the fresh night breeze trailing after them.
Author's note: A spicy chapter for you all! Although there is a version of what happens next in my head, it will not be uploaded here as I don't want this story to get taken down. Sorry!
This is the second-to-last chapter of what I am calling "the wedding arc" of Shall We Dance. We'll wrap up the last chapter next week with an awkward morning-after wedding brunch.
However, this is not the end of the story! I will be continuing to write Shall We Dance in this space (i.e., not under a different title), but I don't know exactly where I want to take the story next. I have some ideas, but I also want to throw it out to you, the readers: anything you want to see? Anything you want more of? Let me know.