BREAK TO BREATHE
by Okami Rayne
Chapter Fourteen
"You need to stop this…because I can't."
Shikamaru's murmur rolled like smoke against Neji's ear, rich and intoxicating.
Dangerous. Wrong. It took the Hyūga a moment to actually register what the shadow-nin had said.
Stop this. Turning his head, he made the mistake of meeting Shikamaru's gaze.
It was like staring into shifting shadows.
The hair-raising heat playing behind the Nara's dark eyes only confirmed what Neji had once suspected. That beneath the surface of Shikamaru's lackadaisical nature lay a dormant force difficult to rouse or reach. But once riled, it ignited.
Shadows always needed a flame.
He was already burning in it.
Stop. Neji swallowed, trying to dislodge the lock at his jaw and steady his voice back to its cool, serene tenor.
"Did you honestly think that I…" the words died on a hiss as teeth grazed along the chords in his throat.
Neji felt a flush scatter across the surface of his skin; but the ghost of Shikamaru's breath seeped deeper, diffusing its smoky, hoarse shiver into the Jōnin's blood like a drug.
How is he doing this to me…? Neji smacked his head back against the panel with a curse, trying to focus on the dull throb in his skull rather than this treacherous pleasure unfolding in parts of him he'd closed up and closed off.
It was like being caught in some chillingly erotic genjutsu.
But the only illusion seemed to be control – because he could feel it slipping.
"No
."
He didn't realise he'd spoken the word out loud until Shikamaru's lips brushed his ear again.
"I know…" the shadow-nin breathed.
They both knew.
This was wrong – disastrous.
Neji knew it with every fibre of his being, but those fibres were coming undone beneath the art of breath and touch, like chakra strings being pulled apart and played by a force he couldn't understand, only feel.
Feel… Like the tips of faintly calloused fingers which skimmed his jaw line, caressed his nape and then lost themselves in the thick mocha of his hair, carving up higher to press along his scalp. Static danced through him, buzzed in his veins, hummed low and deep in his core.
Such simple touches, reaching into starved parts of him.
Insane…this is…insane… Neji ground his teeth, trying to clamp down the sounds threatening to spill forth. His eyes flickered shut.
"Let it out…" Shikamaru lips skimmed across the taut column of his throat again, teeth pinching at the tight chords as if to loosen them. "Neji."
"Shut up…" Neji tightened his grip at Shikamaru's hip, hard enough to bruise.
But Shikamaru ignored it, even leaned closer. A tongue slid along his bottom lip.
"Just let it out."
"No
."
"If you won't let it out…" Shikamaru's mouth moved sinuously above his own, feeding the next words into the kiss. "Then let me in…"
The ripple of innuendo in those words spread to every nerve-ending in Neji's body, firing off too many reactions to consciously process. The default defence kicked in, his breath halting low in his throat.
"I swear to God, Nara…If you even try..."
"You'll kill me," Shikamaru finished, speaking those hoarse words directly against Neji's mouth. "Or at least you'll try to."
"I would break you apart…" Neji hissed back, but the intimate twine of their breaths kept him rooted, somehow unable to push the other ninja away.
"Like what you're doing to yourself?"
Neji's chest tightened. "God I hate you…"
Shikamaru tilted his head, parting his lips to reply. Neji took the opportunity to silence his smart mouth, jabbing his tongue into the wet cavern to battle the other slick muscle into submission. His free hand coasted up along Shikamaru's side, the heel of his hand dragging dark material in a rustle.
'
Like what you're doing to yourself' No…I know what I'm doing…I know 'exactly' what I'm doing… But an icy sliver of doubt pierced his chest.
Damn him. Neji's brow furrowed sharply.
His anger bled into the kiss, forcing Shikamaru to shift his weight forward to keep their positions from reversing. Neji dug his heels in, ready to twist and shove. But his angry expression broke the moment Shikamaru's fingers brushed down from his nape, following the seam of his clothing to part the white fold of his robes.
I need to stop this. The intensity raging between them and through them fired a signal of panic in the small part of his mind that hadn't completely collapsed under the shock. It felt like every inch of his skin was reacting to Shikamaru.
How? It shouldn't feel like this… The shadow-nin had evoked more with his lips, words and subtly erotic touches than any of Neji's past couple of lovers had ever managed to do with the entirety of their bodies and experience.
It can't feel like this. The moment Shikamaru's palm touched his skin, he felt like the bastard had jump-started his heart. A drug-like fever broke out beneath the surface and another wave of undeniable chemistry burned through him.
Neji pulled back from the kiss to snatch air, to snatch sanity.
"Damnit
…" he gasped.
Shikamaru must have seen beneath the surface to the blood he was scorching, because his mouth tracked a moist path across Neji's throat to the pulse point, his tongue pressing against the throb as if to monitor the music of the heartbeat.
"Let me in, Neji…"
"Not…on your…life…"
Neji's hips started to move, first lifting to buck Shikamaru away, but slowly, as if controlled by some innate, primal urge, he began to grind. Shikamaru met the rhythm instantly, rocking into the motions and picking up where they'd stopped earlier.
It was seamless.
Like a song their muscles knew, familiar with the melody but unable to understand the language of the words commanding every grind and grip. Right now they didn't need to understand it.
Neji didn't even want to know.
A hard rock of the Nara's hips thrust the heavy lengths of their clothed arousals together, forcing Neji to clench his jaw to keep from emitting a low sound he absolutely refused to release.
God…it shouldn't feel this good… He closed his eyes.
"Don't close your eyes…" Shikamaru panted.
"Stop…talking…"
"Stop hiding…"
Neji's chin came up, his glazed eyes slipping open defiantly to lock on Shikamaru's. The familiar deadlock. A stubborn fusion of gazes as Shikamaru's palm smoothed down along the marble contours of Neji's stomach, marking out the lean dips and hollows, feeling the faintest slivers of scars.
And then the shadow-nin's hand snaked between their grinding hips.
Pleasure whip-lashed through Neji fierce enough to jolt him; his eyes flared as he sucked in a sharp breath. But something snapped in the back of his mind, like the link in a shackle. The chain-reaction was instant.
Control. He threw his weight forward to smack their lips with a growl, plundering the recesses of Shikamaru's mouth as the other ninja went down under the force of his shove. He vaguely registered that they'd landed in a similar position to the day before, only this time he firmly straddled the shadow-nin beneath him.
Shikamaru clearly hadn't anticipated this, but the look of momentary shock on his face gave way to a tight smirk. "I don't think so, Hyūga."
"Bastard," Neji snapped, breathless. "If you think I'm going to give you that control, you can go to hell."
Shikamaru's eyes darkened; a shadow of fleeting anger in the lust. "It's not about control."
"The hell it isn't." Neji leaned down, his fingers latching at Shikamaru's jaw to pin the shadow-nin's head back against the floor, baring the length of throat semi-obscured by the black turtleneck.
He felt Shikamaru's hands fly to his hips, gripping and shoving, but this only served to grind them together as Neji worked against the grain of movement. The chafing roll of their bodies heightened the electric desire, crackling and fuelling the battle of pleasure and power playing out between them.
That's all this is…that's all this is… If the friction working into a frenzy wasn't enough to have Neji feeling more turned on and carnal than he'd thought humanly possible, he suddenly caught the expression on Shikamaru's face.
It knocked his understanding of uncomplicated lust to hell.
The normally jaded and disinterested set of Shikamaru's features had crumbled, baring the most striking display of raw, sensual hunger. Neji felt the air torn from his lungs at the vision of it. To think
this existed inside of someone so laid-back and unaffected. The contradiction was alluring. Neji fingers suddenly slacked at Shikamaru's jaw, his thumb smoothing gently along the angular, tense slant.
He'd never been captivated by anything quite like this.
Shikamaru's gaze flicked up, his black eyes glittering like polished obsidian. He frowned, not understanding the shift in Neji's gaze. Neji couldn't have named it even if he'd tried, so he just stared back wordlessly, panting out a hoarse shiver of breaths.
But his eyes gave away what he wouldn't say.
I can't stop this either… He didn't protest when Shikamaru propped himself up on his elbows. Nor did he pull back when the shadow-nin reached up to grip his nape and tug him firmly into a kiss.
"Damn you, Shikamaru," he managed to whisper again before their mouths slid together.
"Way too late," Shikamaru murmured against his lips.
Neji leaned into the deep probe and stroke of tongues. He rocked back onto his knees when Shikamaru surged up, both seeking dominance until both of them were kneeling, pressed close enough that Neji could feel the hard flesh of Shikamaru's arousal jabbing his stomach. The evidence of his own pulsing length tented the pale fabric of his pants, but he was denied the friction he craved.
Shikamaru must have read his body if not his mind, because the Nara's fingers slid south, gripping him roughly through the fabric.
Neji broke the kiss on a ragged gasp, jerking. "Fuck…"
"
This," Shikamaru dragged the heel of his palm along the straining erection, "isn't about control."
Neji seethed a breath through his teeth, clenching his jaw until his ears rang, but it was nothing compared to the ache between his legs. He felt that dizzying rush spiral into a knot at the base of his spine, building a delicious pressure with every rough drag of Shikamaru's hand.
"Kami…"
Neji smacked their brows together, anything to keep from tipping his head back. He stiffened in shock when Shikamaru's nimble fingers worked the fixtures of his pants, skimmed beneath the surface and wrapped their talented touch around the thick base of his rigid flesh.
"Damn," Shikamaru groaned, finding Neji's lips with a low, purring murmur. "Matches your ego – and I thought you might be compensating."
"Ngh…fuck…you…" Neji panted, despite the backhanded compliment, too drunk on pleasure to offer a smart retort.
Shikamaru dragged his fist from root to leaking tip, causing Neji's hips to rise and his lips to part. But he made no sound, holding it back and holding it down, low in his throat.
"Move with me…" Shikamaru husked, but despite the steady stroke of his hand, his humid breath fell ragged and shaky against Neji's mouth. "Move."
The word fed that ravenous need burning in the pit of Neji's stomach. He reached down to cup Shikamaru's crotch through the black pants, caressing hard enough to pull a guttural groan from the other ninja.
"
You move," he hissed before slanting their mouths in a kiss.
The tremor of Shikamaru's growl reverberated along Neji's tongue as he dipped it into the inviting mouth. It was nothing compared to the husky moan he swallowed down when he tugged the throbbing length free. He felt the Nara shudder as he wrapped his long fingers around the impressive girth, his thumb teasing the underside of the swollen head.
He'd never touched another man like this. He'd never felt the urge or desire to, but right now, he wanted nothing more than to wring more of this deeply buried lust from the hoarse and humid heat building between them.
Instinct took care of the rest.
The kiss deepened, gaining an edge of ferocity that matched the rough drag of their fists as they both rolled into each other's touches, like waves undulating, both unwilling to break on that rock of pleasure grinding their breaths into rough, broken pants.
Neji could feel the pleasure rising inside him like a tsunami, climbing higher with every torturous glide and twist of Shikamaru's hand. A shake started to build in his limbs, rippling along the lock of his torso and thighs.
He felt a fresh sweat break out across his skin.
Felt the sticky cling of his robes.
Felt the stifling heat melting his resolve as he fought to hold on.
"Let go," Shikamaru's rough voice licked like fire along his nerves.
Neji shook his head, only to have his hand knocked aside and replaced by Shikamaru's solid grip stroking them both together.
Holy Gods. Neji could have blacked out from the intensity of the pleasure; he was certain that part of him was already gone, lost on a current of lust he knew was going to capsize him.
No… "No…"
"You're so close…God…stop fighting…"
Neji snapped his fingers to Shikamaru's nape, digging his grip brutally, seeking an anchor to keep him from coming apart.
His pride and his need battled out their chaos inside him.
But even that struggle couldn't stop the erotic force coiling tighter, pushing harder.
He felt Shikamaru's forehead tap against his hitai-ite. Their brows touched in a strangely tender way, at odds with the rhythm of the tight hand working them closer to that blistering edge.
"Neji…Just let go…"
Neji couldn't have held on even if he'd tried.
Those soft words, coupled with a rough stroke of Shikamaru's hand, pushed him over the edge. The coil inside him exploded, sending a shockwave in all directions. It slammed through him in a judder, tearing him up with pleasure.
He arched sharply, a shattered gasp breaking from his lips.
He was vaguely aware of the splash of wet heat between their bodies and a low, soft moan against his throat as Shikamaru fell into the same ecstasy. It rolled through them in waves, crashed, crushed and cast them out on a mind-numbing tide of release until there was nothing but the sensation of floating…
Neji knew his heart was racing, his lungs aching with breathless pants…
But he felt disconnected from his body…wanting to drift on this steady ebb of pleasure…
The roaring heat simmered, slowed and soothed to hazy warmth…
A steady throb beat inside of him…an easy, sated pulse...
God…when was the last time I felt something like this? He never had time to recall.
Too soon he felt his senses dragging him back, leeching away the warmth by degrees…
The pulsing white that had flashed behind his eyes faded to black.
After a while he became aware of his heartbeat again, of his chest rising and falling against a body also struggling to steady its breaths.
Neji eyes slipped open just as Shikamaru's lashes lifted.
Their gazes locked, bodies tensing up as the cold, harsh reality gripped them.
Fuck.
