Time Limit"This is nice."
"Oh? What is?" Fingers splashed lightly across the water, leaving ripples in their wake. Eyes half-lidded, a lazy smile played on her lips as she replied.
"Being here like this." The warmth was making her more than a little drowsy. Granted, it was about 3 in the morning. Reina had never been that much of a nocturnal creature. That had always been Ai's domain.
That said, her drowsiness was obviously lowering her sense of awareness. Reina had never seemed more kittenish than right now, cuddled up in Ai's arms. Both girls were naked as the day they were born, given that they were currently soaking in the bathtub.
"We should get in the bath together at 3 in the morning more often then." Ai teased, burying her face into Reina's damp hair.
Reina pouted. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."
"Guilty." Ai admitted freely, burrowing lower to nuzzle at Reina's neck, drawing a purr from the younger. "I've missed you."
The pithy admission drew a familiar surge of emotion from Reina, a surge of emotion she just as swiftly suppressed for one simple reason: it never went any further than this. This was the closest she ever got to getting anything resembling a confession from Ai.
"We've been hanging out since the day before." Reina reminded her in a neutral tone. Their fingers were interlocked on top of Reina's stomach, and neither seem repulsed or even embarrassed by the skin on skin contact. It was comfortable like this, to hold and be held by someone close to you.
"Mm, but it's always nice being with you."
If Reina were not already so tired, she might have flared up, or even cried. As it was, she was simply to exhausted, mentally and physically, to even respond. All she
did do was shift slightly, so that she could angle her gaze to look at Ai behind her.
"Ai-chan..." Her voice was soft, almost meek. Ai's face was fondly indulgent as she returned the gaze. "Mm?"
"Do you like me?"
If there was ever a question that felt like a bolt of lightning to Ai's otherwise perfectly ordered world, this would be it. Reina could actually
feel Ai freeze underneath her, and instantly regretted asking.
"It's nothing really, you don't have to..."
Ai's voice was quiet as she cut in. "You know I do, Rei."
There it was again, that intimate nickname. Even Reina's close friends and family only called her "Reina". Only Ai ever called her that, was
allowed to call her that.
Ai had leaned back when Reina had shifted earlier, but now her face was turned up and away to regard the ceiling. Reina hated that distant look of pain, hated how it took
her Ai away from her. Hated it, because she felt like she had caused that pain.
"Ai..." But the rest of the words died on her lips, as they always did. Just for once, Reina wished that she, or either one of them really, would just break out of their goddamn cycle and just do something already, instead of indulging in this shadow play between lies and truth.
"Reina." The sudden switch away from the nickname startled her, and Reina felt a sudden sense of foreboding. "Do you hate me?"
That was an interesting reversal of the question she had thrust on Ai earlier. Reina allowed herself to dwell on the irony of that for a moment, so as to shift her focus away from the bombshell Ai had just literally dropped on her out of nowhere. In a way, it was almost like payback for her asking that forbidden question.
Inevitably though, since she couldn't exactly ignore the question Ai had just asked, Reina allowed a tiny bit of her true emotions to surface. An ugly knot of repressed feelings that had built up over the years came into view; a confusing mess of love, insecurity, pain and resentment. Like it or not, Ai had penetrated deep within her heart, and not always in the best way.
Do I hate her? Could I?Reina very much wanted to hate Ai. She did, at one point, when the pain of rejection had been at its highest at the beginning. She had resolved to hate the older girl who had practically ran away from her, but somehow that hadn't lasted. Her resolve had melted the first time Ai came to apologize to her, but it didn't dull the pain. Ai had apologized for all the wrong reasons, since Reina didn't need for her to apologize for what happened that night. What had hurt was how Ai didn't trust Reina to make her own decisions about what had happened between them.
Sliding down so that she could rest her head on Ai's chest, Reina didn't answer right at first. Ai's heartbeat was clear to her from this position, beating slow and steady. She wrapped her arms around the older girl's waist, and felt the rhythm skip a few beats. She couldn't resist a small smile at that.
Ai's chest fell up and down steadily, and Reina was almost hypnotized by the motion, feeling drunk all over again. One hand moved up to cup Ai's breast possessively, even as she buried her face in between the soft mounds. She felt Ai's breath hitch ever so slightly, the arms encircling her tightening. The rapidly cooling water in the tub suddenly seemed of no moment, lost as they were in their own heat.
"I hate you." Reina mumbled into Ai's chest, brushing her lips over the sensitive skin, feeling Ai shiver under her. "I hate you so much..." Tongue flicked lazily around the suddenly hard nipple, drawing a sensual shudder from Ai as Reina blew lightly on it.
"Reina..." Ai's voice was almost agonized, her skin flushed. Teeth dug in mercilessly, hot breath on equally heated skin. Nails sank into compliant flesh, a sibilant hiss received in turn.
"You make me so mad..." Reina panted as she finally lifted her eyes to meet Ai's gaze. "Mad enough to lose myself..."
The dark eyes filled with lust were also tinged with pain and guilt. The words they needed, that they craved, never came. They spoke through touch instead; rending, hateful, needy.
Hands clung on in desperation, as if they would drown if they let go. Panted breaths, steam rising in the haze of their wretched passions, they fought and came together like wild cats. Wracked in the throes their own inferno, their eyes searching for each other desperately across the burning abyss, they seemed like they would almost cry.
Both held on to an ideal they could not reach; all they had were each other, and yet it was in that essence of which that they sorely lacked. The feelings that could not reach each other; they end up being tossed into the pit of their own making. And with every touch, every step, they sank deeper...
Fall with me.~*~*~
The obnoxiously loud pop tune in the early reaches of morning was like a jackhammer to the brain, and a frustrated hand swept blindly around to silence the source of the disturbance.
A bunch of other stuff rattled to the floor from the impatient swipes, but the phone continued chirping on with hardly a care in the world, blissfully ignoring the fact that its master had barely gotten more than a couple hours of sleep, especially after the
strenuous activity from before.
Fingers clawed over the offending object, yanking it under the covers with an irritated "what?!" as the call was answered. Silence for several moments, as neither side made a sound.
When the caller finally said something, the previously sleepy girl suddenly realized something. Well, two things.
This was not her phone.
And they were
so in trouble.
=====================================================
And there. This should be fun.
Comment lots!
Topic: Nanchatte Renai [25/7 - Bonus Ending: Full Circle] (Read 76110 times)