Way More Than a Thing
Title: Way More Than a Thing
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Kageyama/Hosho Reiko (Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato De)
Summary: Each night with Kageyama makes it more difficult because of how badly she wants him to want her in return.
Notes/Warnings: This is a sequel to A Helping Hand. Please read that one first. Both stories are porn WITH plot, just the way I like it. LOL happy birthday Sho~~
Since childhood Reiko has known the future that awaits her. She'll inherit the leadership of the Hosho Group, will marry someone rich, maybe royal, and together they'll produce perfect children. And at least since graduating university there's been an addendum to said future: have all those things AND be the lead detective of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
So then why is the allure of such a happy, successful future starting to seem less exciting?
She knows exactly why, much as she's embarrassed to admit it to herself. She knows every time she leaves the car in the morning, every time the irritating girls at work giggle about some new boyfriend they're doting on (even at solemn crime scenes), and every time the lights go out in her bedroom and she's not alone there.
It's been going on a few months now, this "thing" with Kageyama. Reiko shudders at the thought of her butler and her boyfriend being one and the same, so "thing" has been the preferred term in her mind. After all, he doesn't treat her differently during the day - he's still rude and arrogant and cloaks it in unfailing politeness.
Most boyfriends don't drive their girlfriends around in a limo. Most boyfriends don't stand by quietly while their girlfriends eat their meals by themselves. And most boyfriends do not call their girlfriends "my lady."
And yet, she's passed a new rule: if Kageyama wishes to sleep, he must do so in her bedroom and preferably in her bed. He's adapted to this well enough, spending some nights on the floor and others tucked in beside her. But even when they share a bed, he keeps a distance. Even when he's used his expert fingers to please her, he always pulls away when she's been sufficiently...pleased. There was even the other extraordinary night where he replaced his hands with his mouth for the very first time, and Reiko's certain she may never reach such heights again.
But he doesn't kiss her, doesn't call her affectionate names, doesn't do anything else. He's always gone in the morning, and he's back to Kageyama, evil butler with the devilish smirk. It's frustrating, Reiko thinks, for she's pretty certain she's fallen hard for him even against her better judgment. She wants to know if Kageyama pleases her out of obligation or of his own accord. Surely if he disliked what he was doing he wouldn't do it so diligently, right? Or so well.
She doesn't want to be part of the job to him, she wants to be more than that. Even if it's foolish of her to admit it - after all, isn't she supposed to marry someone perfectly suited to her status in life? So why on Earth would she dream of walking down the aisle on her father's arm, only to find Kageyama waiting for her at the altar?
Reiko's been saving herself for all these years, the perfect untouched heiress. Well, she's played a little fast and loose with that definition the past few months, but she's still untouched in the way that truly matters, isn't she? But each night with Kageyama makes it more difficult because of how badly she wants him to want her in return. She doesn't want him to pull away any longer. She doesn't care about old-fashioned expectations, not after all she's felt these past few months. And so Reiko has a new goal:
Sex. Actual sex. With Kageyama.
--
Of course, because Reiko is Reiko, and she's utterly perfect in every area save this one, the way to broach the subject is insanely difficult. She certainly won't lower herself to begging in the bedroom, not consciously anyway. The mere thought of him inside her is usually all it takes to put her over the edge, but he's gotten incredibly skilled at dodging out of the way once his work is done. He's always clothed, and he keeps his distance. And the idea of just shoving her hands in his pants is an alarming one at that. She's not bold or brash enough for something like that.
And they don't really talk about what happens in the bedroom outside of the bedroom either. She's not the type of person who can say "Kageyama, thanks for last night." But now that she has her goal in mind, the goal of being together with Kageyama in a way that is obviously mutually beneficial, maybe she needs to loosen up. Maybe she needs to appeal to Kageyama with all the wiles she has available to her as a beautiful, desirable woman.
Kageyama is a man, after all, not a robot. At least she's never found an off switch. He's a little strange, but surely he has needs, too. He spends so much time attending to her that he must be aching for something more. He's just extremely good at hiding it, Reiko thinks. Maybe it's part of butler training - teaching yourself not to appear sexually interested in the woman you already perform sexual acts on.
So Reiko decides to throw herself at him. But tastefully. She starts to read women's magazines during her bath time - Kageyama can't discover her plotting then. She switches to a new perfume - when she enters the room, his nose twitches slightly. He's noticed something is different, but he says nothing. She touches him more, patting his shoulder as she greets him in the morning. She smiles more for him, even when he's saying something to her that ought to leave him out in the streets, destitute and homeless with no place to be a stupid, stuck-up butler.
She calls for him when she's changing, asking him to finish zipping up a dress when she can probably finish it herself. She opts for more plunging necklines, dinner attire that is far from appropriate, and tries to lean forward more. When she leaves a crime scene as Shourei-san and Detective Kazamatsuri gives her a box of chocolates, she asks Kageyama to feed her one in the limo. She opens wide, closing her eyes until he unceremoniously shoves a huge truffle inside her mouth and nearly chokes her.
A few weeks go by, and he still hasn't seemed to notice. She frowns at herself in the mirror one evening. With all the extra pheromones she's probably giving off, any man would have succumbed to her by now. Any man would have taken a hint. Any normal man, but not Kageyama. She yanks open her drawer and pulls out a hideous pair of plaid pajamas her parents had sent her from somewhere overseas. There's no sex appeal to these pajamas, and that suits Reiko just fine.
When Kageyama enters, she's laying on her stomach, stretched out across the whole mattress. "My lady," he says in his usual polite tone, closing the door and heading for the bed.
She harrumphs a bit, turning her head the other way on the pillow. "You can sleep on the floor tonight, Kageyama," she tells him huffily. "I do not require you."
Since she's usually demanded he spend at least part of the night with her every night for the past few months, definite shock registers on his face. "Would my lady prefer it if I stayed in my room tonight?"
"I have no preference at all where you're concerned," she says. "Do whatever you want, just let me sleep."
He pauses, and she thinks his brain must be wondering what the hell has led her to reject him so completely after all this time. At least she hopes so. Doing everything she could to look like she was easily won and open for business hasn't succeeded. Maybe the way to Kageyama's heart (if he actually has one) is to do the complete opposite. Maybe he'll want to prove his interest in her if he's worried he no longer has what it takes to satisfy her. He's the type of person who hates to lose.
"I see," he says, and to her astonishment, he doesn't even mask the obvious hurt in his voice. "Then I shall retire to my own room. I apologize for being so forward."
She hides a smile at her triumph. "Go away then. I don't need you."
But when the door closes and Reiko's alone in the dark, she wonders if she's only made it worse.
--
Kageyama is surprisingly attentive over the next few weeks, even as Reiko spends every night alone and misses his presence in the bedroom. His barbs and jibes become less sharp, the meals he prepares for her seem even tastier than usual, and he even praises her one evening for successfully getting a suspect to offer a full confession to a murder. Genuine praise, not the usual Kageyama praise cloaked in a dozen snooty "I told you so" layers.
But it only makes her more cruel, more eager to see him prostrate himself before her and beg for her to need him once more. She doesn't threaten to fire him when he teases her now, merely rolls her eyes. She complains about her food being average (even when it's definitely not) or tells him she already ate at work (even though he'd probably followed her around and knew it to be a lie). She even tells him he's free to take a day off once in a while, which may be the lowest blow yet to someone who works as diligently as Kageyama.
She's really done a number on him. She's made him question his own butler perfection, thrown the planet where Kageyama considers himself all knowing and wise off its axis. And when a month of this behavior goes by, she finally starts to feel terrible for it. Her bed is empty, her nights are lonely, and he hasn't even tried to call her bluff once. The Kageyama she first met would have seen through her ruse of coldness and indifference right away.
Is this what she really wants? Is this what she thinks is really going to make him want to have sex with her? Is this what she thinks will convince him that he should turn their "thing" into "way more than a thing"? He's miserable, she's miserable. She's fairly certain she really likes Kageyama, maybe even loves him despite his many personality deficiencies.
She arrives home late, having spent most of the day interrogating persons of interest. Between Detective Kazamatsuri's stupid insistence that the suspect was probably some sort of shapeshifter ("maybe even a real squirrel, Hosho-kun!") and the perfect alibis of most of the potential suspects, it's been a long day. A policeman had driven her home (well, to a house two blocks away so there'd be no suspicion of her real identity), thus negating any need for Kageyama to pick her up.
The house is almost too quiet when she enters, and she gets all the way to the dining room before she remembers why. Kageyama had finally taken her up on her offer of a day off, and he's gone wherever he needed to go. Maybe to a creepy mystery solvers convention. He's prepared a meal for her, though, with curt, Kageyama-style directions for simply reheating it in the oven. She eats at the kitchen counter all by herself, trying not to cry with all that she's done.
She puts her whole heart into everything, whether it's into being the world's most desirable heiress or into her work. Now she's put her whole heart into pushing Kageyama away when he's done nothing wrong. She's allowed her selfish expectations on Kageyama to turn her into some kind of sex-craving witch. If he doesn't want her, he doesn't want her. She can't force him to do something he doesn't want to do.
"Kageyama, come clear this away!" she shouts in frustration when she's done eating, but the realization that he's not there only makes her feel worse.
She dumps the empty plate in the sink and flings the fork in after it as she stomps off. Reiko has to do something that doesn't always come natural to her. Reiko has to apologize to him. Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow she'll act sweet and generous and adoring. Tomorrow she'll act as if she can't live without Kageyama's assistance. And it won't be acting so much as simple truth.
There's no point in staying downstairs and reading or speculating about the case any further. Kageyama's not around. She marches up the stairs in a less than ladylike fashion and finds an envelope on the bed, propped against her pillow.
At first she inhales sharply, horrified that it might be Kageyama's letter of resignation, but it's not marked as such. And besides, if he quit his position he would have to write a letter to her father, not her. Instead she opens it up and finds his perfect, tidy handwriting:
My lady,
Forgive me for taking a day off and inconveniencing you in any way. I also ask for your forgiveness as I have taken the liberty of following you today in hopes of assisting you in your work. After a thorough investigation of your own investigation, I have reached the conclusion that Kuramoto Takahiro from the real estate office is the culprit responsible for the murder. Despite Kazamatsuri-san's efforts, it is impossible for a man/squirrel hybrid to have committed this crime. Below see my conclusions and evidence for Kuramoto's guilt in this matter. I wish you the best of luck in making your own decisions regarding this case, even if they are misguided as usual, but know that it would please me greatly if you took my conclusions into consideration...
"Kageyama," she murmurs, noticing the paragraphs and paragraphs of handwritten notes he'd taken and left for her to find, even on his day off. Meddlesome and mean as always, but as Reiko reads through Kageyama's explanations, it becomes all the more obvious that he has solved the case perfectly, considering things that Reiko hadn't even thought of.
If a murderer is at large, Reiko decides, then it's up to her to see him brought to justice. Of course, Kageyama is not around to drive her, and she panics briefly before considering the obvious: she calls a taxi and has the driver bring her to Kuramoto's office. He had seemed suspicious earlier that day, though his alibi had checked out. But with Kageyama's conclusions, it seems as though the murder had been committed earlier and the body tampered with.
Reiko tells the driver to notify Kazamatsuri-san to hurry over (since she doesn't need to give the detective any proof that she and Shourei-san are the same person), pays him, and heads into the building, remembering from her questioning earlier that Kuramoto often stayed late. It feels odd going in without Kageyama beside her. She finds him stuffing a briefcase full of money when she enters the office, looking at him sternly.
"Kuramoto-san!" She's memorized Kageyama's conclusions on the taxi ride over, and she spits the knowledge in the murderer's face, explaining how he managed to commit the crime and still have an alibi. He looks down, obviously caught in his lies. She feels rather triumphant about it all until Kuramoto panics and suddenly draws a gun from his briefcase and turns it on her.
Reiko feels instantly stupid in that moment, using Kageyama's words and Kageyama's reasoning but none of Kageyama's common sense. Why did she go in alone? Why didn't she simply wait for Kazamatsuri-san? Her desire for swift justice definitely seems to have gotten her in trouble now.
She holds up her hands. "Kuramoto-san, please, turn yourself in," she says to him, shaking. "You don't want to do this."
"I have an alibi!" he shrieks. "You all cleared me, no problem! Open and shut case, that detective said. He blamed it on a squirrel man!"
Reiko still can't understand the squirrel bit. "Tanaka-san was stealing from you, I understand you were angry. But don't make your sentence worse by killing an unarmed woman in cold blood."
"Shut up!" the man shouts, and then a police siren goes off. Kuramoto panics, and Reiko expects him to shoot her any moment and flee. She shuts her eyes when Kuramoto's finger finds the trigger, but then there's hurried footsteps in the hallway.
"My lady, get down!"
And soon she is down, having been tackled to the floor of the real estate office, and there's a bullet lodged in the wall right where she was standing. Her body hurts, but she's otherwise unharmed. She cracks an eye open to see Kageyama shielding her protectively just as Kazamatsuri-san and several other officers come hurrying into the room. They corner Kuramoto, but before Reiko can see the man arrested, Kageyama's hauled her to her feet and is already tugging her away.
"Wait, Shourei-san!" Kazamatsuri calls after her, but Kageyama isn't waiting.
"Kageyama," she pleads with him as he pulls her with him, down the stairs. He doesn't look at her, doesn't say anything. He's driven over in the limo, and he holds the door open for her to get inside.
When he gets inside, the force of him slamming the driver's side door after him startles her into silence. She wants to say something, wants to thank him for helping catch the criminal, wants to thank him for saving her in the nick of time, but she can't bring herself to do so. It seems like the longest car ride of her life. She can't even catch his gaze in the rearview mirror.
They enter the house, and her heart's still racing. He locks the front door, and she stands there in the hall, arms crossed. Finally, he looks at her, and she doesn't see any of his familiar expressions. There's no cheer, no amusement, no irritation with her inability to think the same bizarre way he does. Is he furious with her?
"Dinner was delicious," she blurts out suddenly. "The dinner you made me. I reheated it. Followed your directions, I'll have you know. So you can't go telling me I can't cook, Kageyama. I won't hear it from you. But even on your day off, you made something for me. Thank you. I appreciate..."
She gasps when he approaches and grabs hold of her shoulders. He leans close, stopping himself just shy of kissing her. Despite all they've done in her bedroom, she's never felt so intimate with him before.
"Kageyama..." she mumbles, staring up into the dark eyes behind his glasses. In this moment Reiko realizes something. She doesn't just like Kageyama. She loves Kageyama, who made her dinner and solved her crime and saved her life. She hates how she's treated him, hates the person she's become around him. And even after all that, he's here for her. Maybe it's not just duty that consumes him. Maybe she's not just a job to him.
He seems to realize that his emotions (he does seem to have them!) have clouded his actions, and he looks embarrassed briefly before letting go and stepping back. "Ah, forgive me," he mutters.
But then Reiko steps forward. "You have done nothing that requires my forgiveness," she admits. "I'm sorry for going in alone. It was foolish of me. I worried you, and I apologize."
"At the very least," he says, still looking rather shaken up, "you are extremely predictable, so I knew you'd go straight there if you found my letter. I would have been there earlier, but I had a bit of trouble finding parking in the neighborhood..."
She ignores the obvious jibe at the predictability of her behavior along with the thought of him circling the block looking for a parking spot when she was being held at gunpoint by a murderer. After all, this is the man she's chosen, despite his many faults as a human being.
"Will you come to my room tonight?" she asks him, interrupting his unnecessarily detailed story about the challenges of parallel parking a limousine.
He nods, his face returning to its usual calm state, but with obvious effort on his part to make it that way. "As you wish, my lady."
--
It's already after midnight. Maybe Kageyama's keeping himself busy downstairs, washing her dishes from dinner or reorganizing the wine cellar. Instead of awaiting him in the bed, she stands just inside the door so that the first thing he'll see is her. She forgets the perfumes and lotions and the sexy nightgowns she'd bought during her "Operation Seduce Kageyama" campaign weeks earlier. Instead she's in the same simple nightgown she'd worn the first time he'd come to her room. She feels rather plain, but she'd rather be plain than something she's not.
She's scared.
Not because it's Kageyama, because she can't think of anyone else she'd trust so completely with a situation like this, but because she isn't sure what to expect. He might still turn her down. Or if they do go the whole way, it might hurt - her friend had once said that it really hurts the first time. And that would embarrass her totally, crying and complaining during something she's wanted for so long.
It's supposed to be special, or so movies have led her to believe. On a wedding night. Or in a very special place with lit candles and rose petals and soft music. Instead, she's just Reiko, a woman foolish enough to have fallen in love with her butler. But, she tells herself, she can still love Kageyama and lead the Hosho Group. She can still love Kageyama and become Japan's finest detective. She can have all these things because she can make her own rules. And besides, it's not like her father has another heir to fall back on should he disagree with her choices.
The door finally opens, and she feels her stomach tie itself in knots. For months she's let him touch her, but that was seemingly only for her own benefit. Tonight is completely different. He's in his silly butler pajamas with the fake bow tie, his glasses gone, and his expression serious.
"My lady," he says first, "have you changed your mind? I can return to my room..."
He seems to have interpreted her being out of bed as a change of heart, but it couldn't be further from the truth. "Close the door, Kageyama."
He does so, turning back to look at her with his usual judgmental face. But better that face than any other. At least this one she's used to. He cocks his head. "You want me to do this while you're standing up, my lady?"
She turns beet red. He's under the impression that she's only asked him back for a certain thing. "No," she snaps at him. "I wanted to...Kageyama, I...after tonight, we...about what happened earlier..."
"My lady, are you sure I'm the right person?" he asks, and suddenly Reiko knows that Kageyama knows exactly why he is here. He was only trying to break the ice with his first comment.
She nods. "Yes," she tells him earnestly. "You are the only person, actually."
He leans back against the door, eyebrow raised suspiciously. "We can't."
"Why not?" she challenges him. "If you don't want to, that's one thing. Just tell me that, and you can leave and...and...and take a week off then so I can regain my pride. But if you do want to, and you're refusing after everything we've already done because you think there's this line you simply won't cross, then you're awful. You're awful for the way you've touched me without complaint and awful for how gentle you always are when you do it and you're awful for the way you looked at me downstairs. You can't look at another person like that and not do something about it!"
He considers her ramblings for a moment, sighing. "My lady, if you actually think I don't want to be with you, then you are truly stupid."
She rolls her eyes. "Okay, so you want me, then? You want to be with me?"
"Always," he says honestly, or as honest a tone as Kageyama can seemingly muster in his voice.
"Then what's stopping you? When you were pulling me out of that building, when you were driving home, you were thinking about me. You were probably thinking of what you would have regretted if something bad had happened. That's what you truly feel, Kageyama, those are the feelings you should be true to. Believe me, I have tried very hard not to like you..."
He snorts at that, but she continues nonetheless.
"...but I've given up because when I think about my life, I can't really live it without you. Even when you're mean, because you only say these things because you're utterly deficient when it comes to conversing with people."
He actually starts to smile now.
"So I don't know if my father threatened to kill you or if it's rule eight hundred and ninety-five of your butler handbook or if you're saving yourself for that stupid cardboard cutout girl in your creepy pervert fantasies, Kageyama. But right here, right now, I am trying to tell you that I am terrified. I am more terrified than when that criminal pointed a gun at me. I am scared you are still going to say no to me. I'm not going to order you to do this, I'm not going to cry or get down on my hands and knees or fire you. I just...I just..."
His voice is almost a whisper. "Say it."
"I just want you."
He considers her. "My lady, you could have anyone. I've lived every day expecting you to find someone and come home to brag about how you've found the right person. Or that your father would inform me of some marriage proposal you're likely to agree to. I don't want to take any of that away from you. I've been perfectly content to imagine serving you for the rest of my days, maybe to have one dance with you at your wedding should you prove to be competent enough on the dance floor..."
And now she's smiling too.
"...but you say that you want me, my lady. That you truly want me, and not just as someone who pushes in your chair."
"I do," she tells him.
He leans forward, getting up in her face like he always does before he berates her. She shuts her eyes, waiting for his final smackdown. Instead he puts two fingers under her chin and lifts her face up so their lips can meet. It's sweet and gentle and it's truly happening. Her pulse is rushing, and they really might do this.
He breaks away from her, and she looks at him differently. He's kissed her because he wants to, because he wants her. Everything has changed, and yet it's the same face staring back (and looking almost cocky). She takes a step backward, then another until she's clearly making a move to walk back to the bed.
"Should I turn the lights off?" he asks.
"Not all of them," she says. Everything else he's done to her has been under cover of darkness. Not this time. She wants to see him.
He leaves the lamp on at her bedside, and she pulls the covers down on her side of the bed, revealing the towel that she hastily stashed there. He grins, and she scowls at him. "It's my first time, Kageyama. Don't be a jerk now."
She climbs into the bed, arranging the towel underneath herself before laying back and holding her breath. Will she bleed everywhere? Will it hurt? Will she bleed everywhere? Will it hurt? Will she...
"Breathe," comes Kageyama's voice, and he's already beside her, propped up on his elbow to stare down at her. "Just breathe. We'll take this slowly, my lady."
It's odd to see him, feel him right next to her and know beyond a doubt that he cares for her. She hears him pull something from the pocket of his pajama bottoms, hearing the slightest crinkle of a wrapper. "You knew," she mutters angrily. "You knew exactly what I wanted and prepared for it."
"My lady, I prepare for every contingency where it involves you. Now don't be so grumpy."
She finds herself looking away as he pulls his pajamas off, first the bottoms and then he unbuttons the top with its stupid fake bow tie. She turns back just as he's shrugged out of the top. She's rather surprised at the sight of him, of the muscles in his arms, in the flatness of his stomach. She's not sure what she was expecting, seeing as how she's used to him in his usual attire. Kageyama is obviously an actual human being outside of his clothes, and an attractive man at that.
"You're blushing," he says, brushing his lips against her forehead. "I like that you're blushing."
It's not the sort of thing she's expecting, having watched so many movies and soap operas. But Kageyama defies expectations. They spend more time kissing, and she does find herself relaxing into his touch. She closes her eyes as he plays with her hair a bit, twisting it around his fingers, kissing her face, her lips, her neck.
His mouth drifts to her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. "You tell me how you'd like this to go, my lady. Would you like your nightgown on or off?"
He's touched her in her most intimate of places, soon he'll be doing more than touching her there. Surely she doesn't need her clothes on if his no longer are, but she's still nervous.
"When you're ready," he reminds her, his fingers running down her arm, tickling and teasing.
"Off," she answers quickly before she changes her mind.
He moves back so she can sit up, and she slowly pulls the fabric of her nightgown up at the hem, her hands quivering as she pulls it up and over her head. She doesn't miss his intake of breath, much as he tries to mask it. He's nervous too, she realizes. He's just far better at hiding it.
He kisses her again, and Reiko appreciates the attention he's paying her, staying at her side and kissing a warm trail down her neck to her collarbone. He drifts lower, startling her by cupping her breast in one hand and tasting the other. Her body's responding already, remembering what Kageyama's touch can do to her. He continues his explorations, seeming to delight in the privilege she's granted him.
"It'll be easier if I touch you first. May I touch you?"
She nods, and he kisses her in reply. He deftly slides her panties down, and then his hand is there. But unlike their previous encounters, he isn't just touching at her command, working to get her off. The end result will change. He's only preparing her for the inevitable. She does gasp at the first finger of his that plunges into her, and he swallows her next gasp with his mouth, kissing her deeply and slipping his tongue inside.
He's patient with her, more than she's even expected, preparing her body with two fingers, easing them in and out as she grows wetter, more eager for him to be within her. His lips disappear from her mouth to reappear against her neck, and she moans quietly as his tongue licks at her pulse. "Kageyama," she finds herself whispering as he speeds up the pace of his fingers, adding another.
"Just tell me," he says against her skin.
"I will."
She starts to move her hips in time with the way his fingers are thrusting inside, trying to open herself up to him wider. There's no turning back, she understands. There's no candles, no rose petals. Just "prepared for every contingency" Kageyama with his condom waiting beside him.
"I think..." she finally says, "I think...now...I mean, if you're also ready..."
"As you wish, my lady."
He slowly withdraws his fingers from her, and she opens her eyes to stare up. Her breaths are coming in gasps from the way he's been touching her, and she listens nervously as he removes his boxer shorts, tears open the small wrapper. This is the end of something, the beginning of something else.
And then he's maneuvering himself, sliding her legs apart and she bends them at the knee. She can't help but shut her eyes tight again. "If this hurts, tell me to stop," he warns her.
He's on top of her, kissing her forehead briefly before she feels some pressure. The pressure increases, and she bites her lip. It's Kageyama, Kageyama pushing inside of her, the way she's wanted, and even still it's quite the shift from a few fingers. He pushes a bit more, pulls back, and then forward again until she whimpers a bit at the adjustment she has to make to the sudden feeling of him there.
Her eyes open, and he's looking down at her. "Have I hurt you?"
"It's uncomfortable..." He frowns and looks distressed, and she thinks there's something utterly perfect about him in this moment. She stops him with a hand to his arm. "But it doesn't hurt. Not really."
He nods, capturing her lips quickly and when he pulls back, she realizes he's shaking a bit in his own nervousness. He moves a bit experimentally, and even if it's still an odd feeling, it's not a bad one. Maybe it's because it's Kageyama and because she wants this. She finds herself wrapping her arms around him, delighting in the quiet mumble of pleasure he lets out when she scratches his back the slightest bit.
He can't help but start to move against her with a bit more need, a bit more want. She wonders just how long Kageyama may have been suppressing his desire for her. How long has he wanted to be exactly where he is, with their bodies joined? These thoughts seem to ease her discomfort, and he seems to sense that she's adjusted as best she can given her inexperience.
Kageyama starts to give in to his own needs, and he moves faster, a bit less considerate. His mouth finds hers, sloppily, hastily. She holds tight to him, even when the pressure and dull ache don't seem to fully ease. The tighter she clings to him, the more he seems to forget himself. The patented Kageyama control gives way to Kageyama, the man who wants her.
There's the sound of her breaths and his in the dimly lit room, and the new and oddly satisfying sound of their bodies coming together. The sound of her mattress moving in time with his movements, growing quicker with every passing second. She could tell him to slow down, but she's too engrossed in the experience of Kageyama so close, Kageyama inside her and his breath hot against her bare skin. His body grows more slick from sweat, and he seems to stifle a moan against her neck, the sound making her tremble. Being with her is doing this to him. It's enough to make her smile a bit. This is only the first time, and much as it feels strange, she wants this again. She wants it a second time and a third and more.
"My lady," he whispers, "my lady, I must..."
He moves against her a few more times, hard enough to make her gasp in surprise, but then it's over, his breathing labored as he seems to collapse. She wonders how much he held himself back for her sake, ruffling his hair a bit when he doesn't seem ready to move yet.
"Kageyama," she murmurs, and there's an immediate, almost horrified apology from him before he moves, withdrawing from her slowly. The ache within her is dulled, but it doesn't leave. Her body will need some time to adjust to this sort of thing.
There are more quiet apologies, and he vanishes briefly, presumably to clean himself. She's still coming down from the oddness of everything. It wasn't what she expected, but it wasn't horrible. It was something special, and she finds herself embracing him as soon as he returns to the bed.
"I'm so sorry if I hurt..."
She interrupts him, kissing him quickly. The light's still on, and she can see his face when they break apart. The way he's looking at her, with tired eyes and an easy smile - now she really believes it. He just might like her as much as she likes him.
"Do you wish for me to stay?" he asks, looking ready to fall asleep right there and then.
She's given herself to him, but she doesn't feel as though she's lost anything. In fact, she's pretty certain that she's gained something better than she could have imagined. He may still be her devil-tongued butler, but he's hers all the same.
"Stay," she says sweetly as his arms tighten around her. "Or you're fired."
Rating: NC-17
Characters/Pairings: Kageyama/Hosho Reiko (Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato De)
Summary: Each night with Kageyama makes it more difficult because of how badly she wants him to want her in return.
Notes/Warnings: This is a sequel to A Helping Hand. Please read that one first. Both stories are porn WITH plot, just the way I like it. LOL happy birthday Sho~~
Since childhood Reiko has known the future that awaits her. She'll inherit the leadership of the Hosho Group, will marry someone rich, maybe royal, and together they'll produce perfect children. And at least since graduating university there's been an addendum to said future: have all those things AND be the lead detective of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police.
So then why is the allure of such a happy, successful future starting to seem less exciting?
She knows exactly why, much as she's embarrassed to admit it to herself. She knows every time she leaves the car in the morning, every time the irritating girls at work giggle about some new boyfriend they're doting on (even at solemn crime scenes), and every time the lights go out in her bedroom and she's not alone there.
It's been going on a few months now, this "thing" with Kageyama. Reiko shudders at the thought of her butler and her boyfriend being one and the same, so "thing" has been the preferred term in her mind. After all, he doesn't treat her differently during the day - he's still rude and arrogant and cloaks it in unfailing politeness.
Most boyfriends don't drive their girlfriends around in a limo. Most boyfriends don't stand by quietly while their girlfriends eat their meals by themselves. And most boyfriends do not call their girlfriends "my lady."
And yet, she's passed a new rule: if Kageyama wishes to sleep, he must do so in her bedroom and preferably in her bed. He's adapted to this well enough, spending some nights on the floor and others tucked in beside her. But even when they share a bed, he keeps a distance. Even when he's used his expert fingers to please her, he always pulls away when she's been sufficiently...pleased. There was even the other extraordinary night where he replaced his hands with his mouth for the very first time, and Reiko's certain she may never reach such heights again.
But he doesn't kiss her, doesn't call her affectionate names, doesn't do anything else. He's always gone in the morning, and he's back to Kageyama, evil butler with the devilish smirk. It's frustrating, Reiko thinks, for she's pretty certain she's fallen hard for him even against her better judgment. She wants to know if Kageyama pleases her out of obligation or of his own accord. Surely if he disliked what he was doing he wouldn't do it so diligently, right? Or so well.
She doesn't want to be part of the job to him, she wants to be more than that. Even if it's foolish of her to admit it - after all, isn't she supposed to marry someone perfectly suited to her status in life? So why on Earth would she dream of walking down the aisle on her father's arm, only to find Kageyama waiting for her at the altar?
Reiko's been saving herself for all these years, the perfect untouched heiress. Well, she's played a little fast and loose with that definition the past few months, but she's still untouched in the way that truly matters, isn't she? But each night with Kageyama makes it more difficult because of how badly she wants him to want her in return. She doesn't want him to pull away any longer. She doesn't care about old-fashioned expectations, not after all she's felt these past few months. And so Reiko has a new goal:
Sex. Actual sex. With Kageyama.
--
Of course, because Reiko is Reiko, and she's utterly perfect in every area save this one, the way to broach the subject is insanely difficult. She certainly won't lower herself to begging in the bedroom, not consciously anyway. The mere thought of him inside her is usually all it takes to put her over the edge, but he's gotten incredibly skilled at dodging out of the way once his work is done. He's always clothed, and he keeps his distance. And the idea of just shoving her hands in his pants is an alarming one at that. She's not bold or brash enough for something like that.
And they don't really talk about what happens in the bedroom outside of the bedroom either. She's not the type of person who can say "Kageyama, thanks for last night." But now that she has her goal in mind, the goal of being together with Kageyama in a way that is obviously mutually beneficial, maybe she needs to loosen up. Maybe she needs to appeal to Kageyama with all the wiles she has available to her as a beautiful, desirable woman.
Kageyama is a man, after all, not a robot. At least she's never found an off switch. He's a little strange, but surely he has needs, too. He spends so much time attending to her that he must be aching for something more. He's just extremely good at hiding it, Reiko thinks. Maybe it's part of butler training - teaching yourself not to appear sexually interested in the woman you already perform sexual acts on.
So Reiko decides to throw herself at him. But tastefully. She starts to read women's magazines during her bath time - Kageyama can't discover her plotting then. She switches to a new perfume - when she enters the room, his nose twitches slightly. He's noticed something is different, but he says nothing. She touches him more, patting his shoulder as she greets him in the morning. She smiles more for him, even when he's saying something to her that ought to leave him out in the streets, destitute and homeless with no place to be a stupid, stuck-up butler.
She calls for him when she's changing, asking him to finish zipping up a dress when she can probably finish it herself. She opts for more plunging necklines, dinner attire that is far from appropriate, and tries to lean forward more. When she leaves a crime scene as Shourei-san and Detective Kazamatsuri gives her a box of chocolates, she asks Kageyama to feed her one in the limo. She opens wide, closing her eyes until he unceremoniously shoves a huge truffle inside her mouth and nearly chokes her.
A few weeks go by, and he still hasn't seemed to notice. She frowns at herself in the mirror one evening. With all the extra pheromones she's probably giving off, any man would have succumbed to her by now. Any man would have taken a hint. Any normal man, but not Kageyama. She yanks open her drawer and pulls out a hideous pair of plaid pajamas her parents had sent her from somewhere overseas. There's no sex appeal to these pajamas, and that suits Reiko just fine.
When Kageyama enters, she's laying on her stomach, stretched out across the whole mattress. "My lady," he says in his usual polite tone, closing the door and heading for the bed.
She harrumphs a bit, turning her head the other way on the pillow. "You can sleep on the floor tonight, Kageyama," she tells him huffily. "I do not require you."
Since she's usually demanded he spend at least part of the night with her every night for the past few months, definite shock registers on his face. "Would my lady prefer it if I stayed in my room tonight?"
"I have no preference at all where you're concerned," she says. "Do whatever you want, just let me sleep."
He pauses, and she thinks his brain must be wondering what the hell has led her to reject him so completely after all this time. At least she hopes so. Doing everything she could to look like she was easily won and open for business hasn't succeeded. Maybe the way to Kageyama's heart (if he actually has one) is to do the complete opposite. Maybe he'll want to prove his interest in her if he's worried he no longer has what it takes to satisfy her. He's the type of person who hates to lose.
"I see," he says, and to her astonishment, he doesn't even mask the obvious hurt in his voice. "Then I shall retire to my own room. I apologize for being so forward."
She hides a smile at her triumph. "Go away then. I don't need you."
But when the door closes and Reiko's alone in the dark, she wonders if she's only made it worse.
--
Kageyama is surprisingly attentive over the next few weeks, even as Reiko spends every night alone and misses his presence in the bedroom. His barbs and jibes become less sharp, the meals he prepares for her seem even tastier than usual, and he even praises her one evening for successfully getting a suspect to offer a full confession to a murder. Genuine praise, not the usual Kageyama praise cloaked in a dozen snooty "I told you so" layers.
But it only makes her more cruel, more eager to see him prostrate himself before her and beg for her to need him once more. She doesn't threaten to fire him when he teases her now, merely rolls her eyes. She complains about her food being average (even when it's definitely not) or tells him she already ate at work (even though he'd probably followed her around and knew it to be a lie). She even tells him he's free to take a day off once in a while, which may be the lowest blow yet to someone who works as diligently as Kageyama.
She's really done a number on him. She's made him question his own butler perfection, thrown the planet where Kageyama considers himself all knowing and wise off its axis. And when a month of this behavior goes by, she finally starts to feel terrible for it. Her bed is empty, her nights are lonely, and he hasn't even tried to call her bluff once. The Kageyama she first met would have seen through her ruse of coldness and indifference right away.
Is this what she really wants? Is this what she thinks is really going to make him want to have sex with her? Is this what she thinks will convince him that he should turn their "thing" into "way more than a thing"? He's miserable, she's miserable. She's fairly certain she really likes Kageyama, maybe even loves him despite his many personality deficiencies.
She arrives home late, having spent most of the day interrogating persons of interest. Between Detective Kazamatsuri's stupid insistence that the suspect was probably some sort of shapeshifter ("maybe even a real squirrel, Hosho-kun!") and the perfect alibis of most of the potential suspects, it's been a long day. A policeman had driven her home (well, to a house two blocks away so there'd be no suspicion of her real identity), thus negating any need for Kageyama to pick her up.
The house is almost too quiet when she enters, and she gets all the way to the dining room before she remembers why. Kageyama had finally taken her up on her offer of a day off, and he's gone wherever he needed to go. Maybe to a creepy mystery solvers convention. He's prepared a meal for her, though, with curt, Kageyama-style directions for simply reheating it in the oven. She eats at the kitchen counter all by herself, trying not to cry with all that she's done.
She puts her whole heart into everything, whether it's into being the world's most desirable heiress or into her work. Now she's put her whole heart into pushing Kageyama away when he's done nothing wrong. She's allowed her selfish expectations on Kageyama to turn her into some kind of sex-craving witch. If he doesn't want her, he doesn't want her. She can't force him to do something he doesn't want to do.
"Kageyama, come clear this away!" she shouts in frustration when she's done eating, but the realization that he's not there only makes her feel worse.
She dumps the empty plate in the sink and flings the fork in after it as she stomps off. Reiko has to do something that doesn't always come natural to her. Reiko has to apologize to him. Tomorrow, she decides. Tomorrow she'll act sweet and generous and adoring. Tomorrow she'll act as if she can't live without Kageyama's assistance. And it won't be acting so much as simple truth.
There's no point in staying downstairs and reading or speculating about the case any further. Kageyama's not around. She marches up the stairs in a less than ladylike fashion and finds an envelope on the bed, propped against her pillow.
At first she inhales sharply, horrified that it might be Kageyama's letter of resignation, but it's not marked as such. And besides, if he quit his position he would have to write a letter to her father, not her. Instead she opens it up and finds his perfect, tidy handwriting:
My lady,
Forgive me for taking a day off and inconveniencing you in any way. I also ask for your forgiveness as I have taken the liberty of following you today in hopes of assisting you in your work. After a thorough investigation of your own investigation, I have reached the conclusion that Kuramoto Takahiro from the real estate office is the culprit responsible for the murder. Despite Kazamatsuri-san's efforts, it is impossible for a man/squirrel hybrid to have committed this crime. Below see my conclusions and evidence for Kuramoto's guilt in this matter. I wish you the best of luck in making your own decisions regarding this case, even if they are misguided as usual, but know that it would please me greatly if you took my conclusions into consideration...
"Kageyama," she murmurs, noticing the paragraphs and paragraphs of handwritten notes he'd taken and left for her to find, even on his day off. Meddlesome and mean as always, but as Reiko reads through Kageyama's explanations, it becomes all the more obvious that he has solved the case perfectly, considering things that Reiko hadn't even thought of.
If a murderer is at large, Reiko decides, then it's up to her to see him brought to justice. Of course, Kageyama is not around to drive her, and she panics briefly before considering the obvious: she calls a taxi and has the driver bring her to Kuramoto's office. He had seemed suspicious earlier that day, though his alibi had checked out. But with Kageyama's conclusions, it seems as though the murder had been committed earlier and the body tampered with.
Reiko tells the driver to notify Kazamatsuri-san to hurry over (since she doesn't need to give the detective any proof that she and Shourei-san are the same person), pays him, and heads into the building, remembering from her questioning earlier that Kuramoto often stayed late. It feels odd going in without Kageyama beside her. She finds him stuffing a briefcase full of money when she enters the office, looking at him sternly.
"Kuramoto-san!" She's memorized Kageyama's conclusions on the taxi ride over, and she spits the knowledge in the murderer's face, explaining how he managed to commit the crime and still have an alibi. He looks down, obviously caught in his lies. She feels rather triumphant about it all until Kuramoto panics and suddenly draws a gun from his briefcase and turns it on her.
Reiko feels instantly stupid in that moment, using Kageyama's words and Kageyama's reasoning but none of Kageyama's common sense. Why did she go in alone? Why didn't she simply wait for Kazamatsuri-san? Her desire for swift justice definitely seems to have gotten her in trouble now.
She holds up her hands. "Kuramoto-san, please, turn yourself in," she says to him, shaking. "You don't want to do this."
"I have an alibi!" he shrieks. "You all cleared me, no problem! Open and shut case, that detective said. He blamed it on a squirrel man!"
Reiko still can't understand the squirrel bit. "Tanaka-san was stealing from you, I understand you were angry. But don't make your sentence worse by killing an unarmed woman in cold blood."
"Shut up!" the man shouts, and then a police siren goes off. Kuramoto panics, and Reiko expects him to shoot her any moment and flee. She shuts her eyes when Kuramoto's finger finds the trigger, but then there's hurried footsteps in the hallway.
"My lady, get down!"
And soon she is down, having been tackled to the floor of the real estate office, and there's a bullet lodged in the wall right where she was standing. Her body hurts, but she's otherwise unharmed. She cracks an eye open to see Kageyama shielding her protectively just as Kazamatsuri-san and several other officers come hurrying into the room. They corner Kuramoto, but before Reiko can see the man arrested, Kageyama's hauled her to her feet and is already tugging her away.
"Wait, Shourei-san!" Kazamatsuri calls after her, but Kageyama isn't waiting.
"Kageyama," she pleads with him as he pulls her with him, down the stairs. He doesn't look at her, doesn't say anything. He's driven over in the limo, and he holds the door open for her to get inside.
When he gets inside, the force of him slamming the driver's side door after him startles her into silence. She wants to say something, wants to thank him for helping catch the criminal, wants to thank him for saving her in the nick of time, but she can't bring herself to do so. It seems like the longest car ride of her life. She can't even catch his gaze in the rearview mirror.
They enter the house, and her heart's still racing. He locks the front door, and she stands there in the hall, arms crossed. Finally, he looks at her, and she doesn't see any of his familiar expressions. There's no cheer, no amusement, no irritation with her inability to think the same bizarre way he does. Is he furious with her?
"Dinner was delicious," she blurts out suddenly. "The dinner you made me. I reheated it. Followed your directions, I'll have you know. So you can't go telling me I can't cook, Kageyama. I won't hear it from you. But even on your day off, you made something for me. Thank you. I appreciate..."
She gasps when he approaches and grabs hold of her shoulders. He leans close, stopping himself just shy of kissing her. Despite all they've done in her bedroom, she's never felt so intimate with him before.
"Kageyama..." she mumbles, staring up into the dark eyes behind his glasses. In this moment Reiko realizes something. She doesn't just like Kageyama. She loves Kageyama, who made her dinner and solved her crime and saved her life. She hates how she's treated him, hates the person she's become around him. And even after all that, he's here for her. Maybe it's not just duty that consumes him. Maybe she's not just a job to him.
He seems to realize that his emotions (he does seem to have them!) have clouded his actions, and he looks embarrassed briefly before letting go and stepping back. "Ah, forgive me," he mutters.
But then Reiko steps forward. "You have done nothing that requires my forgiveness," she admits. "I'm sorry for going in alone. It was foolish of me. I worried you, and I apologize."
"At the very least," he says, still looking rather shaken up, "you are extremely predictable, so I knew you'd go straight there if you found my letter. I would have been there earlier, but I had a bit of trouble finding parking in the neighborhood..."
She ignores the obvious jibe at the predictability of her behavior along with the thought of him circling the block looking for a parking spot when she was being held at gunpoint by a murderer. After all, this is the man she's chosen, despite his many faults as a human being.
"Will you come to my room tonight?" she asks him, interrupting his unnecessarily detailed story about the challenges of parallel parking a limousine.
He nods, his face returning to its usual calm state, but with obvious effort on his part to make it that way. "As you wish, my lady."
--
It's already after midnight. Maybe Kageyama's keeping himself busy downstairs, washing her dishes from dinner or reorganizing the wine cellar. Instead of awaiting him in the bed, she stands just inside the door so that the first thing he'll see is her. She forgets the perfumes and lotions and the sexy nightgowns she'd bought during her "Operation Seduce Kageyama" campaign weeks earlier. Instead she's in the same simple nightgown she'd worn the first time he'd come to her room. She feels rather plain, but she'd rather be plain than something she's not.
She's scared.
Not because it's Kageyama, because she can't think of anyone else she'd trust so completely with a situation like this, but because she isn't sure what to expect. He might still turn her down. Or if they do go the whole way, it might hurt - her friend had once said that it really hurts the first time. And that would embarrass her totally, crying and complaining during something she's wanted for so long.
It's supposed to be special, or so movies have led her to believe. On a wedding night. Or in a very special place with lit candles and rose petals and soft music. Instead, she's just Reiko, a woman foolish enough to have fallen in love with her butler. But, she tells herself, she can still love Kageyama and lead the Hosho Group. She can still love Kageyama and become Japan's finest detective. She can have all these things because she can make her own rules. And besides, it's not like her father has another heir to fall back on should he disagree with her choices.
The door finally opens, and she feels her stomach tie itself in knots. For months she's let him touch her, but that was seemingly only for her own benefit. Tonight is completely different. He's in his silly butler pajamas with the fake bow tie, his glasses gone, and his expression serious.
"My lady," he says first, "have you changed your mind? I can return to my room..."
He seems to have interpreted her being out of bed as a change of heart, but it couldn't be further from the truth. "Close the door, Kageyama."
He does so, turning back to look at her with his usual judgmental face. But better that face than any other. At least this one she's used to. He cocks his head. "You want me to do this while you're standing up, my lady?"
She turns beet red. He's under the impression that she's only asked him back for a certain thing. "No," she snaps at him. "I wanted to...Kageyama, I...after tonight, we...about what happened earlier..."
"My lady, are you sure I'm the right person?" he asks, and suddenly Reiko knows that Kageyama knows exactly why he is here. He was only trying to break the ice with his first comment.
She nods. "Yes," she tells him earnestly. "You are the only person, actually."
He leans back against the door, eyebrow raised suspiciously. "We can't."
"Why not?" she challenges him. "If you don't want to, that's one thing. Just tell me that, and you can leave and...and...and take a week off then so I can regain my pride. But if you do want to, and you're refusing after everything we've already done because you think there's this line you simply won't cross, then you're awful. You're awful for the way you've touched me without complaint and awful for how gentle you always are when you do it and you're awful for the way you looked at me downstairs. You can't look at another person like that and not do something about it!"
He considers her ramblings for a moment, sighing. "My lady, if you actually think I don't want to be with you, then you are truly stupid."
She rolls her eyes. "Okay, so you want me, then? You want to be with me?"
"Always," he says honestly, or as honest a tone as Kageyama can seemingly muster in his voice.
"Then what's stopping you? When you were pulling me out of that building, when you were driving home, you were thinking about me. You were probably thinking of what you would have regretted if something bad had happened. That's what you truly feel, Kageyama, those are the feelings you should be true to. Believe me, I have tried very hard not to like you..."
He snorts at that, but she continues nonetheless.
"...but I've given up because when I think about my life, I can't really live it without you. Even when you're mean, because you only say these things because you're utterly deficient when it comes to conversing with people."
He actually starts to smile now.
"So I don't know if my father threatened to kill you or if it's rule eight hundred and ninety-five of your butler handbook or if you're saving yourself for that stupid cardboard cutout girl in your creepy pervert fantasies, Kageyama. But right here, right now, I am trying to tell you that I am terrified. I am more terrified than when that criminal pointed a gun at me. I am scared you are still going to say no to me. I'm not going to order you to do this, I'm not going to cry or get down on my hands and knees or fire you. I just...I just..."
His voice is almost a whisper. "Say it."
"I just want you."
He considers her. "My lady, you could have anyone. I've lived every day expecting you to find someone and come home to brag about how you've found the right person. Or that your father would inform me of some marriage proposal you're likely to agree to. I don't want to take any of that away from you. I've been perfectly content to imagine serving you for the rest of my days, maybe to have one dance with you at your wedding should you prove to be competent enough on the dance floor..."
And now she's smiling too.
"...but you say that you want me, my lady. That you truly want me, and not just as someone who pushes in your chair."
"I do," she tells him.
He leans forward, getting up in her face like he always does before he berates her. She shuts her eyes, waiting for his final smackdown. Instead he puts two fingers under her chin and lifts her face up so their lips can meet. It's sweet and gentle and it's truly happening. Her pulse is rushing, and they really might do this.
He breaks away from her, and she looks at him differently. He's kissed her because he wants to, because he wants her. Everything has changed, and yet it's the same face staring back (and looking almost cocky). She takes a step backward, then another until she's clearly making a move to walk back to the bed.
"Should I turn the lights off?" he asks.
"Not all of them," she says. Everything else he's done to her has been under cover of darkness. Not this time. She wants to see him.
He leaves the lamp on at her bedside, and she pulls the covers down on her side of the bed, revealing the towel that she hastily stashed there. He grins, and she scowls at him. "It's my first time, Kageyama. Don't be a jerk now."
She climbs into the bed, arranging the towel underneath herself before laying back and holding her breath. Will she bleed everywhere? Will it hurt? Will she bleed everywhere? Will it hurt? Will she...
"Breathe," comes Kageyama's voice, and he's already beside her, propped up on his elbow to stare down at her. "Just breathe. We'll take this slowly, my lady."
It's odd to see him, feel him right next to her and know beyond a doubt that he cares for her. She hears him pull something from the pocket of his pajama bottoms, hearing the slightest crinkle of a wrapper. "You knew," she mutters angrily. "You knew exactly what I wanted and prepared for it."
"My lady, I prepare for every contingency where it involves you. Now don't be so grumpy."
She finds herself looking away as he pulls his pajamas off, first the bottoms and then he unbuttons the top with its stupid fake bow tie. She turns back just as he's shrugged out of the top. She's rather surprised at the sight of him, of the muscles in his arms, in the flatness of his stomach. She's not sure what she was expecting, seeing as how she's used to him in his usual attire. Kageyama is obviously an actual human being outside of his clothes, and an attractive man at that.
"You're blushing," he says, brushing his lips against her forehead. "I like that you're blushing."
It's not the sort of thing she's expecting, having watched so many movies and soap operas. But Kageyama defies expectations. They spend more time kissing, and she does find herself relaxing into his touch. She closes her eyes as he plays with her hair a bit, twisting it around his fingers, kissing her face, her lips, her neck.
His mouth drifts to her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. "You tell me how you'd like this to go, my lady. Would you like your nightgown on or off?"
He's touched her in her most intimate of places, soon he'll be doing more than touching her there. Surely she doesn't need her clothes on if his no longer are, but she's still nervous.
"When you're ready," he reminds her, his fingers running down her arm, tickling and teasing.
"Off," she answers quickly before she changes her mind.
He moves back so she can sit up, and she slowly pulls the fabric of her nightgown up at the hem, her hands quivering as she pulls it up and over her head. She doesn't miss his intake of breath, much as he tries to mask it. He's nervous too, she realizes. He's just far better at hiding it.
He kisses her again, and Reiko appreciates the attention he's paying her, staying at her side and kissing a warm trail down her neck to her collarbone. He drifts lower, startling her by cupping her breast in one hand and tasting the other. Her body's responding already, remembering what Kageyama's touch can do to her. He continues his explorations, seeming to delight in the privilege she's granted him.
"It'll be easier if I touch you first. May I touch you?"
She nods, and he kisses her in reply. He deftly slides her panties down, and then his hand is there. But unlike their previous encounters, he isn't just touching at her command, working to get her off. The end result will change. He's only preparing her for the inevitable. She does gasp at the first finger of his that plunges into her, and he swallows her next gasp with his mouth, kissing her deeply and slipping his tongue inside.
He's patient with her, more than she's even expected, preparing her body with two fingers, easing them in and out as she grows wetter, more eager for him to be within her. His lips disappear from her mouth to reappear against her neck, and she moans quietly as his tongue licks at her pulse. "Kageyama," she finds herself whispering as he speeds up the pace of his fingers, adding another.
"Just tell me," he says against her skin.
"I will."
She starts to move her hips in time with the way his fingers are thrusting inside, trying to open herself up to him wider. There's no turning back, she understands. There's no candles, no rose petals. Just "prepared for every contingency" Kageyama with his condom waiting beside him.
"I think..." she finally says, "I think...now...I mean, if you're also ready..."
"As you wish, my lady."
He slowly withdraws his fingers from her, and she opens her eyes to stare up. Her breaths are coming in gasps from the way he's been touching her, and she listens nervously as he removes his boxer shorts, tears open the small wrapper. This is the end of something, the beginning of something else.
And then he's maneuvering himself, sliding her legs apart and she bends them at the knee. She can't help but shut her eyes tight again. "If this hurts, tell me to stop," he warns her.
He's on top of her, kissing her forehead briefly before she feels some pressure. The pressure increases, and she bites her lip. It's Kageyama, Kageyama pushing inside of her, the way she's wanted, and even still it's quite the shift from a few fingers. He pushes a bit more, pulls back, and then forward again until she whimpers a bit at the adjustment she has to make to the sudden feeling of him there.
Her eyes open, and he's looking down at her. "Have I hurt you?"
"It's uncomfortable..." He frowns and looks distressed, and she thinks there's something utterly perfect about him in this moment. She stops him with a hand to his arm. "But it doesn't hurt. Not really."
He nods, capturing her lips quickly and when he pulls back, she realizes he's shaking a bit in his own nervousness. He moves a bit experimentally, and even if it's still an odd feeling, it's not a bad one. Maybe it's because it's Kageyama and because she wants this. She finds herself wrapping her arms around him, delighting in the quiet mumble of pleasure he lets out when she scratches his back the slightest bit.
He can't help but start to move against her with a bit more need, a bit more want. She wonders just how long Kageyama may have been suppressing his desire for her. How long has he wanted to be exactly where he is, with their bodies joined? These thoughts seem to ease her discomfort, and he seems to sense that she's adjusted as best she can given her inexperience.
Kageyama starts to give in to his own needs, and he moves faster, a bit less considerate. His mouth finds hers, sloppily, hastily. She holds tight to him, even when the pressure and dull ache don't seem to fully ease. The tighter she clings to him, the more he seems to forget himself. The patented Kageyama control gives way to Kageyama, the man who wants her.
There's the sound of her breaths and his in the dimly lit room, and the new and oddly satisfying sound of their bodies coming together. The sound of her mattress moving in time with his movements, growing quicker with every passing second. She could tell him to slow down, but she's too engrossed in the experience of Kageyama so close, Kageyama inside her and his breath hot against her bare skin. His body grows more slick from sweat, and he seems to stifle a moan against her neck, the sound making her tremble. Being with her is doing this to him. It's enough to make her smile a bit. This is only the first time, and much as it feels strange, she wants this again. She wants it a second time and a third and more.
"My lady," he whispers, "my lady, I must..."
He moves against her a few more times, hard enough to make her gasp in surprise, but then it's over, his breathing labored as he seems to collapse. She wonders how much he held himself back for her sake, ruffling his hair a bit when he doesn't seem ready to move yet.
"Kageyama," she murmurs, and there's an immediate, almost horrified apology from him before he moves, withdrawing from her slowly. The ache within her is dulled, but it doesn't leave. Her body will need some time to adjust to this sort of thing.
There are more quiet apologies, and he vanishes briefly, presumably to clean himself. She's still coming down from the oddness of everything. It wasn't what she expected, but it wasn't horrible. It was something special, and she finds herself embracing him as soon as he returns to the bed.
"I'm so sorry if I hurt..."
She interrupts him, kissing him quickly. The light's still on, and she can see his face when they break apart. The way he's looking at her, with tired eyes and an easy smile - now she really believes it. He just might like her as much as she likes him.
"Do you wish for me to stay?" he asks, looking ready to fall asleep right there and then.
She's given herself to him, but she doesn't feel as though she's lost anything. In fact, she's pretty certain that she's gained something better than she could have imagined. He may still be her devil-tongued butler, but he's hers all the same.
"Stay," she says sweetly as his arms tighten around her. "Or you're fired."