Masked

Masked

Chapter 5: The Gauntlet

Sasuke lie in bed, tossing and turning in his sleeplessness, his whirlwind of thoughts keeping him awake.

That and his incredibly sore ass kept him awake as a random spike of pain shot up his spine. His head also hurt a bit from all those times he had passed out. It wouldn’t be something he would try again any time soon. A bit of asphyxiation was one thing, but repeatedly passing out was much worse.

Yet it had been beautiful and wonderful at the time. If only he could get over finding out his lover’s identity.

Naruto. All those years it had been Naruto.

...

"How the fuck could my lover be Naruto?" Sasuke demanded of himself, crossing his arms over his chest. Yes, it definitely explained why his lover...why Naruto...had never wanted to show Sasuke his face. Naruto wasn't the kind of person that would want people to think that he was screwing his boss to gain something.

Not that anyone in the office who knew Naruto would think that, but he could see Naruto using that as a reason.

It made sense, obviously, why their schedules were usually so compatible. Sasuke would often leave from work to go right to wherever they had decided upon meeting. Usually Naruto left the same time he had.

But nothing else made sense.

Naruto was always so considerate and kind. The man Sasuke had known as his lover was passionate but unyielding. Naruto saw things about people that no one else seemed to catch and gently helped them. He knew just when to come into the room when Sasuke needed to be cheered up. Sasuke’s lover took pleasure in forcing Sasuke to want things, ostentatiously showing him what Sasuke wanted. He was serious and determined where as Naruto was funny and happy, and his smile was often infectious. Naruto seemed to know when not to act too annoying when Sasuke was really busy. Not to mention he always seemed to know when Sasuke hadn't been taking care of himself like how he frequently forgot get dinner; usually Naruto ended up buying it for him. His lover rarely thought about his other bodily needs, never resting or stopping.

Then again, maybe Naruto's constant consideration and his attention to everything Sasuke did had made him realize the types of sexual things Sasuke craved? Maybe since Naruto had known if Sasuke had eaten or how hard of a day he had let Naruto gauge how far to push? Maybe Naruto’s consideration for Sasuke showed in how he knew just how to pleasure him?

Sasuke shook his head, still unable to wrap his mind around how finding out after all this time, the fact that his mysterious and almost intimidating lover had always been bright, chipper, annoying, funny Naruto could possibly be so...so...

Fulfilling.

Naruto was attractive. They got along well together at work, and the idea of his lover secretly watching him every day got him rather hot and bothered.

And yet…

Sasuke put his hand to his head, conflicted, thinking about all the complications that came with knowing.

Sasuke was Naruto's boss. That would go down hill really quickly. Not because Sasuke would want to stop their relationship, oh no. On the contrary, he would expect and wait for Naruto to fuck him whenever he had the chance. During their lunch break, after hours, on his desk, on Naruto's desk, in the storage room...making Naruto come into his office at every whim Sasuke had…

Fuck. Sasuke was getting hard just thinking about all the possibilities. He would never want to do any actual work again knowing Naruto was nearby.

The second complication came with how Naruto seemed so (Sasuke couldn’t think of a better way to put it) bottom material. Sasuke was still having an unbelievably hard time wrapping his mind around how his computer tech could act so passionate and intense when he was usually hyper and sweet. A dark part of Sasuke wanted to fuck Naruto just to prove his point, but he had a feeling that would throw a socket wrench into their already tentative relationship.

When Naruto talked, his voice usually sounded high pitched. Yet Sasuke’s lover had a low, seductive voice. Then again, his lover had only usually whispered huskily into his ear, giving off the impression of a low voice. Naruto had always been loud around him. Maybe that could have been a conscious decision to keep Sasuke from finding out…? There were so many things that didn’t seem to fit quite right, and yet, the more Sasuke thought about it, the more he liked the idea.

The last complication came with a lot of insecure questions; why had Naruto run off? Why had Naruto reacted so badly to Sasuke knowing?

The fact that Naruto had run helped fuel part of Sasuke’s skepticism. Naruto being his lover seemed like such an inconceivable notion because why would his sure, steady, lover run from him? Unless his lover had disappeared and Naruto had just seen them together?

It was a possibility. After all, Sasuke knew his lover to have the ability to basically vanish. Maybe Naruto had come looking for him? Yet even though Sasuke was having a hard time with the fact that his lover was Naruto, he had a feeling that Naruto hadn’t just walked in on him.

Sasuke threw off his covers and got out of bed, heading to his computer, wincing as pain shot up his body. He ignored the pain and concentrated on the need to contact Naruto tonight. Sadly, the only means he had to do so was via e-mail. He couldn't wait for Monday to come around before they saw each other at work again. Upon opening his inbox, Sasuke was slightly disappointed that he hadn't received an e-mail from Naruto. He’d hoped Naruto had been as mentally plagued as he was.

As he began to type his reply, cursing Naruto for keeping this from him while meanwhile wondering how many people would notice if he kept Naruto in his office for long periods of time so they could fuck whenever they wanted, he received an e-mail. Sasuke felt a jolt of satisfaction as he saw it was from Naruto's work e-mail.

'Just reminding you I will be with family, and will be out of the office November 2nd and 3rd as I'm leaving November 1st (later today). I will return Wednesday November 4th for work.'

"Damnit," Sasuke hissed, bringing up his work calendar to see that Naruto had indeed requested off for those two days. Something clicked in Sasuke’s brain as he went into his personal e-mail, looking at the e-mail he'd received from his lover stating they wouldn't be able to get together due to his lover’s "prior commitment."

Well, at least that helped to confirm that Naruto’s schedule was the same as his lover’s.

It dawned on Sasuke that he did have Naruto’s number and other personal information. He didn’t have to just e-mail his lover. Being Naruto’s boss apparently had its quirks. Sasuke quickly looked up Naruto's address via his work information. He’d just have to go over to confront Naruto now before he left. Upon finding Naruto’s address, it surprised Sasuke that Naruto didn't actually live very far from him. In fact, it was less than five blocks away.

Deciding to take the situation into his own hands, Sasuke hastily got dressed, looking good enough to kill, swallowed some pain meds without water, and headed out the door to Naruto's place.

Having just received an e-mail from Naruto, Sasuke felt no qualms at all about banging on Naruto's door at close to 3:00 in the morning. Naruto answered quickly, opening the door with a glare.

He didn't seem at all surprised to find Sasuke standing at his door. Sasuke coolly walked inside, not even bothering to wait for an invitation. Sasuke's eyes darted around the spacious living room before casually leaning against the armrest of Naruto's sofa chair, looking at Naruto expectantly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cane and top hat Naruto had worn to the Gala carelessly tossed on the couch.

Sasuke licked his lips as he took in Naruto's appearance. He only wore dark blue sleep bottoms, leaving his toned chest exposed: a chest that Sasuke had seen before, even though it had only been brief glimpses through blindfolds. Yet he definitely recognized the body of his lover. It somehow made how real the fact that it truly had been Naruto hit him.

His body reacted, knowing he was in his lover's home, and in a sense, at his will. Yet Sasuke felt a great disappointment to see Naruto refusing to look at him.

"You didn't even recognize me," Naruto bit out, the hurt clear in his voice. Sasuke found himself suddenly feeling guilty. He should have put two and two together faster.

"You acted so different at work than when we were together," Sasuke tried to defend himself. "You didn't want me to know. Why didn't you just say something? You knew I wanted to be more than just fuck buddies."

When Naruto looked up, Sasuke's eyes bore into Naruto's, daring Naruto to say he didn't want the same. Naruto shook his head.

"No. I didn't want you to recognize me as your lover. How would you know with a blindfold on? I meant from before. You didn't recognize me from when you were younger. You didn't remember me from when we went trick-or-treating together. I thought with how we connected you would be looking for me too. You seemed to want to find me even when I couldn’t come back for a while. I thought you felt how we connected. Didn’t you feel it?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Sasuke demanded, confused about why Naruto was talking about trick-or-treating when he should be talking about how he had known Sasuke's identity this entire time, leaving Sasuke to guess at what Naruto even looked like.

"There's so much to explain that I don't even know where to start," Naruto said, putting his hands into his hair as he sat down on his couch, opposite from where Sasuke stood leaning against the armrest of Naruto's chair. Naruto gave a short laugh. "You're not even going to believe half of what I tell you."

"Why don't you start with why you ran tonight and why you never bothered to tell me?" Sasuke said coldly. Naruto looked up at Sasuke from his sitting position, a dark, lustful look on his face that made Sasuke shiver. Naruto stood up slowly, sensually as he closed the short distance between them, placing his hands on either side of the armrest, deliciously trapping Sasuke. Naruto leaned in close, his lips pressed against Sasuke's cheek. There was a playfulness to his actions. It fused humorous Naruto with lover Naruto. Naruto liked to tease, and this was definitely a form of teasing.

Sasuke closed his eyes, listening to how husky Naruto's voice had become as he spoke. It was like Naruto adapted, considering his every want and desire. At work, Naruto acted as Sasuke would need him to get his work done. Naruto also made sure that Sasuke was in a good mood when he needed to be. Here, alone, Naruto was acting as Sasuke needed him: like his work self and what Sasuke knew of him as his lover.

"Do you have any idea how hard it's been not jumping you every time I see you at work? Do you have any idea how much thought goes into working with you around? For fuck's sake, do you have any idea how hard it is for me to merely just walk away from you after every time we have sex? I could keep going for hours, though I don't think your body would appreciate that so much. But damn did your body take a helluva lot tonight. Your head is probably killing. Not to mention, how sore is the rest of you?" Naruto asked, his lips turning into a satisfied grin against Sasuke's cheek.

Sasuke snorted, smirking at Naruto's cocky question.

"Pretty damned sore," he admitted, "But not sore enough apparently." His entire body felt on fire, from pain, surely, but all over from just wanting and waiting for Naruto to take him again. Sadly, he had a feeling Naruto was more considerate of his body's limits than he was.

Sasuke gasped as Naruto's lips caressed his cheek softly before slowly moving to cover his lips.

Having always been blindfolded or gagged in someway, he wasn't sure that he'd ever felt their faces touching for so long before. They had kissed, but to do so freely felt so refreshing.

Naruto's lips were warm and moist, his skin soft. He gave Sasuke a long, slow kiss before pulling away to look him in the eye.

"So you've been hiding your true intentions for my own benefit?" Sasuke asked, grateful that he didn’t sound breathless.

"And mine. Didn't want to scare you off after I found you again," Naruto murmured. Sasuke scowled.

"I don’t know what you mean by again, but I'm not fragile," Sasuke hissed.

"Yeah, but I still have to quell the urge not to break you," Naruto said, drawing back and looking at Sasuke. His eyes seemed sorrowful. Sasuke, on the other hand, was pissed.

"What do you mean, 'break me?'" Sasuke demanded.

"Yeah, about that..." Naruto said, pulling back even more as he scratched his head looking thoughtful. Sasuke felt a strong urge to punch Naruto as he watched the transition from lover to considerate friend. They had had an intimate moment that held a hint of a promise to lead to something else, and now Naruto was pulling away spouting nonsense about breaking him and going all sentimental on him.

Naruto seemed to feel Sasuke's hostile gaze.

"I told you, you might not believe me, but I promise it's all true. If you hadn’t noticed, I like it rough. Most people don’t, and even though you do, it’s still kind of hard to admit that. But, that’s not all of it. Do you remember that Halloween from when you were five when you met the other little boy you went trick-or-treating with? When I came back to look for you?"

"What? Wait, are you saying that was you? You really tried to find me after just that one evening? You mean, all this time that one night made you try to find me? Isn’t that a bit – much?"

"Yeah, that was me. And no, it’s not too much if it’s the right person! Besides, you were my very first friend. You can’t imagine how much that meant to me! Remember when I told you I was a demon fox for Halloween? Well, I am a demon, but not a demon fox, that was just my Halloween costume – though you looked really good in it when I made us trade outfits – but then you weren’t allowed to come play with me, and your Mom said I had to go away so I wasn’t allowed to come back, but I felt really bad because I could feel that we should be together – I even knew then, and I was lonely so I've been watching you since then on and off, but I couldn’t come back till you moved out because once a human asks us to leave like your mom asked me to do we have to go, so I’ve just kinda spied on you, you know, maybe just a tad bit stalkerish, and so I've been able to figure out what you like and what you don't like, and sometimes I just want to push your limits to see if you don't like the things I think you don't like just to prove that I'm right but that wouldn't be good for you even though I really want to do things that you may not like, but I think you might, but you might not know you like them, but I want to try them because you seem to enjoy it and it makes you happy, and I just want to be with you and to be happy together with me. I just wanted you to know. Man did that felt good to get off my chest," Naruto said in one long winded breath.

Sasuke merely stared at Naruto as though he were crazy because after saying all that he had to be.

"How about saying that again slower so I can understand it?" Sasuke deadpanned. Naruto repeated it, again, slower, with a scowl on his face.

"A demon?" Sasuke said, crossing his arms.

"Yeah. That's where I get all my stamina. I'm not bad or anything, I swear! I’m not like those demons your mom was all sorts of scared about. I just can’t be alone for too long. I tend to get restless and do stupid things to get attention. Oh, and I like sex a lot, as you probably noticed. And maybe I like to play pranks more than others. It’s how I got into enjoying computers so much because I hacked into other people’s computers and had fun messing with their screen savers and things. How else am I different?" Naruto mused out loud to himself.

Sasuke was tempted to say that he had a split personality, but held his tongue.

"I'm pretty strong and I move fast. I didn’t grow up here. I grew up with my parents in a kind of alternate dimension. Basically it’s the same world, like, right now, but you can’t see them. Like, I can go invisible by going to that other world, but what sucks is then I can’t see you. I have to do that to see my parents because they haven’t been able to come here since they got married, and people were only able to see me at obon festivals or Halloween because that’s supposedly the only time humans can see demons and demons can see humans because that’s when humans want to see us, but since you saw me and wanted to keep seeing I can come back. I’m tied to you. You connect me back to being around and also seeing humans. That’s why I was so upset that you didn’t recognize me. I know you wanted to see me again! You had to have! You felt it too, whether you wanted to or not."

"For a moment I'll pretend to believe you. You’ve somehow gotten attached or connected to me. Does that mean you have some demonic power that you used to seduce me?" Sasuke asked.

"Where'd you get a stupid idea like that? I never said anything about seducing you. No. You're just so damned sexy. If anything, you seduced me," Naruto grinned. Sasuke shook his head. He had a feeling that it was a lot more than just sexual for Naruto. If he were honest with himself, Sasuke felt with their e-mails and now with knowing it was Naruto, it was a lot more for him than just sex as well.

"You've been stalking me since you were five?" Sasuke asked, crossing his arms. To his surprise, Naruto merely looked smug.

"Like you don't like the thought of me watching you from afar," Naruto said, his arms crossed.

Sasuke glowered. The thought was extremely erotic. In fact, the thought of Naruto exclusively having his focus on him, waiting for a time to make his move was a turn-on.

"How did you find my post on the internet?" Sasuke asked, curiously. Naruto rolled his eyes.

"Didn’t I just say I was a computer hacker? How do you think I figured out so much about your likes? Your favorite porn sites kinda gave it away. So as soon as that post went up, I knew about it, responded, and then put it into a read-only mode for the one who posted it but made sure to send a couple bogus responses to throw you off."

Yes, Naruto so focused on him, watching him, getting a job at his work, and then satisfying every craving and desire turned him on. The only thing that didn’t appeal to Sasuke about everything Naruto had told him was the fact that Naruto thought himself to be a demon.

Then again, Sasuke would have believed his rough, nameless lover to be a demon if his lover had told him before he’d known that his lover and Naruto were one in the same. Not to mention since Naruto was indeed his lover, and he clearly had a darker side that Sasuke didn’t know about, perhaps Naruto was telling the truth?

"You don't believe me though, do you?" Naruto asked with a pout on his face.

At this point and time, watching Naruto with the adorable pout on his face, he was having trouble once again grasping how Naruto could be so amazingly wild and forceful, yet be able to look cute of all things. Like Sasuke was supposed to believe that demons pout.

"I don’t know why you would make this up, but it is difficult to believe."

"Then I guess I'll just have to prove it to you," Naruto smirked challengingly. Sasuke raised his eyebrow to indicate Naruto could attempt to prove it, throwing down the gauntlet in a challenge.

And that was the last thing Sasuke remembered before everything went black.

Next Chapter: A New Mask

Hope you liked the chapter! ~ Jelp