Silver Lining

So glad you all like last chapter and the way they “dealt” with their issues. Their problems aren’t over yet, though, and this chapter deals with some of the obstacles they will need to overcome. I apologize in advance for there not being a whole lot of plot-related action in this chapter, but here the focus is all about the new dynamics of their relationship. In other words, this chapter is chock-full of pure, undiluted DeiSaku goodness…you guys don’t mind that right? ; )

There are 3 more illustrations for this fic linked on my profile, so go check them out!

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Chapter Seven: Hopes and Fears
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It was still raining. That was the first thought in Sakura’s mind as she slowly emerged from her deep, exhausted sleep. She could hear it falling softly against the roof and window; the last vestiges of the passing storm. The sound was soothing, and she sighed and snuggled deeper into the warmth surrounding her.

She felt very groggy but also incredibly tranquil. Her eyes were still heavy and stiff from her colossal breakdown, and when she sleepily opened them the first thing she saw was the dark zigzag pattern of the seal on Deidara’s chest. They were facing each other, their arms around one another in what had been a tight embrace now loosened by sleep. His fingers were still woven into her hair, and she pressed her face to his chest, pursing her lips against his skin.

She couldn’t believe she’d just fallen apart like that, all from his simple declaration that she wasn’t alone anymore, that he was with her. But a breakdown had probably been a long time coming, and Deidara, his words and actions and mere presence, had been the trigger that brought all her walls crashing down. He made her feel cared for, and he represented possibilities that her battered and broken heart had needed and reached for desperately.

He had been right about her, right about everything. She had been running from her grief and hiding herself away to avoid facing any more pain. Now, gazing up at his sleeping face, she felt as though she’d been wandering through a cold and impenetrable fog, aimless and trapped. But he was like the wind that had blown it all away, or maybe the bright warm light of the sun breaking through to show her the way out, or maybe both at the same time. He had no idea how much he’d helped her.

He also had no idea how cute he was when he was sleeping. His boyish features were usually countered by his cocky and mischievous expressions when he was awake, but now he just looked sweet and adorable. If he knew that he would probably never sleep around other people again. She shifted a little and carefully raised her hand to brush some of those long pale strands away from his face. He looked tired; there was slight discoloring under his closed eyes as if he’d stayed awake long into the night. Perhaps she’d upset him with how violent her breakdown was. Maybe he’d been concerned enough to stay awake to comfort her if she needed it. The thought of Deidara doing something like that was a little odd, but then he’d always sort of treated her differently than he treated other people. She wondered why that was.

Perhaps she would ask him, though he would probably just grumble and say he did no such thing. But she would definitely make sure to show him how much she appreciated everything he’d done for her, later. She had exhausted herself to the point of collapse yesterday, and she was still very tired. Right now she just wanted to lie here, and he was warm and comfortable and smelled good too, so she cuddled closer and closed her eyes with a contented sigh.

When she woke again it was to the feel of Deidara pulling her closer against his chest and his hand caressing up her back. She raised her head and saw that he was just waking up, and as their eyes met she gave him a small, sleepy smile.

“Hi,” she said softly.

His features broke out into a drowsy grin. “Hi,” he murmured, letting his hand slip down her side to settle on her waist.

“It’s still raining,” she said with small amusement, and reached up to tuck some of the stray hair obstructing his face behind his ear.

His gaze lost focus for a second as he listened and confirmed her words, then he gave a lazy smirk and shrugged. “I guess we’re staying inside all day then, yeah,” he said, rolling into her and gently pushing her onto her back so he could lay half on top of her with his face buried in the crook of her neck.

She giggled softly and stretched like a cat under him. “Sounds good to me,” she sighed, and brought her arms around him to comb gently through his long mussed hair.

Deidara propped himself up on one elbow so he could look at her, his expression unreadable. “Did you sleep ok?” he asked quietly.

Sakura nodded. “Better than I have in years, actually.”

He watched her a moment. Her jade eyes were bloodshot, but lucid and unguarded and what’s more; happy. His lips curled in a small smile. “Good,” he said. Her eyes were still slightly puffy and the tops of her cheeks tinted pink from overstrained blood vessels, and her hair was a mess. She would probably say she looked terrible. But he thought she looked adorable, beautiful even, because this was the real Sakura. The natural, unguarded Sakura, the girl he’d known and admired all those years ago. She wasn’t hiding anymore.

She reached up to touch his face with soft fingertips. “Thank you…for pulling me out of that place I was stuck in. I don’t think I could have done it without you,” she said softly.

He stared at her, his expression again unreadable. Then he shook his head dismissively. “I’m just glad you’re ok now,” he said quietly.

She smiled at him and her fingers trailed down his cheek and along his jaw. “Are you ok? You look tired…did you stay awake late?”

Something flickered across his expression, but was soon gone. “I’m fine, yeah,” he said lightly. A moment later he lay back down and his arm closed around her waist. She cradled his head against her and continued to play with his hair, and he closed his eyes with a small sigh. “The exhibition is tomorrow night,” he said after a moment.

She gave a small nod. “The sword will probably arrive sometime today then,” she said absently. She was enjoying their idle interlude, and wished she didn’t have to get up at all.

“When it does I’ll know, but it probably won’t happen until dark, yeah.” He began to play with and loosen the belt of the short robe she’d fallen asleep in. With his other hand he pulled on the neckline, revealing her collarbone and part of her shoulder, and he began to place lazy kisses along her exposed skin.

Sakura smiled at the feel of his lips and shifted a bit to allow him to pull her robe further from her shoulder. “So what do we do all day then?” she asked with a hint of mischief in her voice.

He raised his head and gave her a smirk that told her exactly what he wanted to do all day, and then he was kissing her, slow and lazy and quickly becoming more heated. He rose up on his elbows to lean over her, and she shifted under him and caressed up his sides as their tongues danced. He was so good at it that everything but him was rapidly losing focus and she sighed blissfully and prepared herself for more of last night’s ecstasy, when her stomach suddenly gave a loud, plaintive growl.

He stopped and pulled back to look at her with a highly amused expression, and she blushed with mild embarrassment. “I guess I’m a little hungry,” she said with a small laugh.

He grinned down at her. “Apparently.” He gave her another brief but thorough kiss and finally sat up. “I’ll order something from room service, yeah. What do you want?”

She was tempted to say ‘you’, but then she probably wouldn’t get food for several hours at least, so instead she playfully replied, “One of everything.”

He shook his head. “You eat like a pig, yeah,” he teased. “You better be careful or you’ll be a fat old lady someday.”

She raised her chin defiantly. “No I won’t, I’m a medic; I can just speed up my metabolism to burn it off.” He laughed, and she sat up and linked her arms around his neck, rising up on her knees to partially straddle him. “Besides, you can’t expect me not to have an appetite after all that activity yesterday, and you did drag me away from my dinner…” she said in a playful, sultry tone.

“Hmm,” he smirked wickedly, his hands roaming up her bare thighs and over her hips under the robe.

His lips were dangerous territory, so she kissed his nose instead. “I’m gonna take a shower before breakfast gets here,” she said. She went to get up his hands applied a bit of pressure to keep her there.

“Want some company?” he murmured while bending to kiss and then nibble the side of her neck.

She shivered and resisted temptation. “Maybe next time. You were going to order breakfast, remember? Besides, if you did I doubt I’d actually get to do much bathing.”

He chuckled and moved his hands over her bare hips again. “Then hurry up and go before I remember you’re naked under that robe, yeah,” he said, and she smiled playfully at him before getting up and heading for the bathroom.

When she was gone he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He really was tired. He had stayed awake late, because Sakura crying in her sleep had agitated him to the point where he couldn’t sleep until she stopped, which hadn’t been for quite some time. What bothered him most was that it bothered him so much, that it had invoked some dormant instinctive reaction in him.

He was not a compassionate person. He was selfish and insensitive, and even a bit mean-spirited at times. He knew it, and it had always been perfectly fine with him. He was alarmed by his reaction to her, because it was completely foreign to him. And not just to her crying and breaking down, but to everything she did. He’d always known she was different and that his feelings for her ran on a different line than with other people, but now they were veering off into unknown territory. He felt compromised somehow, like she was changing his very nature, making him contradict things about himself he’d always been so sure of.

The fiercely independent, nonconformist part of him wanted to rebel loudly and defiantly. But rebelling meant pushing her away, and he knew for a fact that was something he did not want to do. Because the truth was he was happy when he was with her, even when she was difficult and irritating, and he loved lying with her like they had just been, feeling relaxed as she played with his hair and touched him in such a soothing way. Her affections were genuinely tender, not absentminded and superficial like he was used to from other women. The last person to touch him in a truly caring way had been his mother, over twenty years ago. He’d never thought about and never missed it, but he supposed it was something all humans secretly needed, no matter how heartless they thought they were.

And now that he had it, it was addicting. It made him want to be tender and affectionate with her in return, something he’d never bothered with before. Being lovers with Sakura was a like a whole new experience. He’d always made sure to please a woman in bed, to demonstrate the mastery of his art and to feed his own ego more than anything else. But with her it went to a whole new level; when they were intimate he felt strangely connected to her in more ways than the obvious. It was far better than it had ever been with anyone else. He guessed maybe it was what was referred to as lovemaking, as opposed to simple sex or fucking. Well…maybe not the first time…that had been pretty wild and primitive, though still amazing. But after, when they’d come to bed…he’d been blown away by how incredible it was. Just thinking about it now was heating his blood and sending it straight to a certain part of his anatomy. No cheap floozy picked up in a bar to satisfy a physical urge could ever compare to what he felt and did with Sakura.

He wanted her. He’d wanted her for a very long time and he had no intention of pushing her away, especially now that he’d finally brought the true Sakura back. He was not the type to deny himself what he wanted, even in the interest of self-preservation. He was just reckless like that. He was a risk-taker. But the things she did to him and the things he felt for her scared him, and they were getting stronger every day. He wasn’t sure how to define it or what to think about anything anymore.

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Sakura sighed and relaxed under the hot stream of water, mechanically going through her bathing routine as her mind processed everything that had happened in the last few days. Today was the first day in years she’d woken up with a pleasant, positive feeling. She was looking forward to the day. She was happy.

The events of yesterday – the fight they’d had and the resulting crash of their wild joining, the hours of incredible passion afterward, and finally her overwhelming breakdown; the whole thing had been a cathartic experience for her and now she felt like she could finally begin to heal.

It was all because of Deidara; because he cared about her and he wouldn’t put up with her self-destruction, and because she cared about him so much in return. She never thought she would get close to another person, and certainly never intended to be intimate with a man again. If she hadn’t met Deidara again, she never would have. There was a pre-existing connection between them, and trust, and attraction. She’d felt stirrings of it toward the end of her time with Akatsuki, but she’d already been with Itachi and it had been too late to see where it might lead. She didn’t regret the way things happened and wouldn’t have had it another way because Itachi had taught her a lot about herself, and the years she spent with Kakashi had been the happiest of her life. She had loved him with all her heart and soul, and he her. When he died she didn’t think she’d be able to go on, and in a way she hadn’t. But life always goes on and now it had led her here to this point, and if one wanted to think in terms of fate, perhaps the connection she’d made with Deidara all those years ago had been for this specific purpose; to save her from despair when she’d become incapable of saving herself. If he hadn’t been here and hadn’t been him, she would still be that ghost woman, that empty shell just waiting to die.

Deidara was right when he’d said that wasn’t the kind of existence her loved ones would want for her. She had always known it, but without them she didn’t see any other way to be. There was nothing to look forward to, no one to love, and nothing to smile about, and so she had simply existed. She knew it was wrong. In a way it was a dishonor to them and the sacrifices they had made.

The possibility of losing Kakashi had always been there, in the back of her mind. He had been the village’s best shinobi, assigned the most dangerous missions imaginable, and he was getting older. She’d always known in theory, but it still hadn’t made it any easier to lose him. But he’d known as well and accepted it, and he’d told her once that he wanted her to live and love again if something ever happened to him. She’d refused to have that conversation at the time, stubbornly blinding herself to the very real probability that he wouldn’t survive the war. He would want this for her, she knew. She’d had no secrets from him; he’d known everything about her time with Akatsuki and her lasting affections for those who survived. If he saw her now with Deidara, she believed he would be happy she’d reunited with him. He had been a very selfless and kind-hearted man underneath his aloof exterior. It was one of the things she loved most about him.

And Naruto…who had been with her through everything, the last of her precious people to leave her…his last words had been a wish for her to find a way to survive without them and be happy again someday. She hadn’t kept that promise very well…but now, she felt like she wanted to try. She wanted to live again.

She hadn’t even realized she’d begun crying again thinking about them, until just now when the tiled spot on the wall she’d been staring at for the last ten minutes blurred out of focus. She sighed and turned her face to the water to wash away her tears. Moving on was hard, but it was what they would all want for her, and she now realized she wanted it for herself.

But that brought up a whole other set of issues. Mostly about Deidara and herself, and the direction their relationship was going. They had crossed the line from friends to lovers. She was ok with this, more than ok actually, but what about him? He wanted her physically, that much was obvious and she’d known it for some time. He cared about her, she knew that too, and they were close friends. But the combination of those things didn’t always indicate the desire for a serious intimate relationship, especially with men. Especially with men like him, who were vehemently set about their independence and unwillingness to blend in with normal society and customs. When it came to women he was a self-admitted hit-and-run type, so to speak. He’d made jokes about it in the past that she had scolded him for. She even remembered hearing Tobi and Kisame talk and tease about it; how he got all the best women when they were on missions because of how handsome he was –they used the word ‘pretty’- and how women were always attracted to his volatile and potentially dangerous character.

Sakura knew that wasn’t what Deidara was doing with her; she knew he held her above that standard of consideration, that she was more to him than a one-nighter or meaningless fling. But what she was unsure of was how much more she was to him. What did he think about this new development between them? What did he want from her, and how far did he want it to go?

What would happen when this mission was over?

It worried her a little to think about, because now that she had a source of comfort and happiness in her life again, she didn’t want to let it go. But what was she going to do? Attach herself to him and tag along wherever he went after this so she didn’t have to be alone again? That wasn’t right, and she didn’t want to weigh him down if he was happier being by himself. She didn’t even really know what she wanted from this yet, other than she didn’t want to go back to being that isolated and lonely shell of a person. She should just talk to him about it, but it had only been a day since everything changed and she wasn’t just going to throw something like that at him, especially since she didn’t even know what her own answers would be. But the reality was their time on this mission and in this beautiful place was coming to an end. Soon they would have to decide where to go and what to do next. He’d offered to take her to see Kisame, and she was really looking forward to it, but what would happen after that?

She was startled out of her thoughts by the sound of the shower door opening. She whirled around to see Deidara step into the steamy glass enclosure and shut the door behind him with a very mischievous grin.

“Deidara! What are you doing?” She’d been so caught up in her thoughts she hadn’t heard the bathroom door open and had no idea how long he’d been standing there. Long enough to strip naked without her noticing, the sneaky little devil.

He shrugged. “I need a shower too, yeah. You’ve had long enough,” he said teasingly, stepping up to her and setting his hands on her naked hips.

She thought he was going to close in on her, maybe kiss her or something, but he merely smirked and moved her out of his way to stand under the water stream.

She gave an indignant laugh and smacked him on the shoulder. He laughed and proceeded to wet his hair through. She didn’t really mind, she was pretty much done and had been just standing here zoning out for the past several minutes anyway. Besides, the sight in front of her wasn’t exactly one to complain about, ever.

When Deidara reached for the shampoo, she reached out to take it from him. He looked at her strangely, but gave her the bottle. “What are you doing?” he asked with a small, uncertain laugh.

She smiled and her features softened a little when she realized he really didn’t know, because he wasn’t used to having someone take care of him. “You can’t just invade my shower and expect me to stand here and do nothing, right?” she said teasingly, and placed a kiss on his cheek as she stepped in to him and began running her soapy hands through his hair.

He looked a little thrown by her affectionate gesture, but he held her waist as she gently massaged his scalp and worked the lather through to the ends of his long hair. When she was finished he rinsed his hair and then she began to gently run the sponge over his skin. He was still just a bit tense, so she leaned in a little more and slipped her free arm around him as she rubbed over his back. “Relax,” she said softly.

“I’ve uh…never…this is kinda strange to me, yeah,” he said awkwardly.

She smiled, feeling a little sad for him and the total absence of affection and caring in his life. She would change that, it was the least she could do after everything he’d done for her. “I know,” she said soothingly, kissing where his neck and shoulder met and tasting the water on his skin.

The tension drained from him and he rested his chin on her shoulder with a small sigh, and a moment later his arms slid around her back and pulled her in. Her arms were pinned beneath his and she couldn’t continue, but she soon realized the way he was holding her was more than a simple embrace and let the sponge fall to the tiled floor so she could wrap her arms around him in return.

His lips brushed her shoulder and began slowly kissing up the side of her neck in a way that was more tender than lustful, and she tilted her head for him with a soft smile. He lifted his head and she met his gaze, and the vulnerability she saw in his expression surprised her and pulled at her heartstrings. She gave him a tiny reassuring smile, not knowing exactly what had come over him but having a fairly good guess. He lowered his face to hers, pausing for just a moment before meeting her lips. It was soft and tender, and something passed between them that she felt all the way through her being. He held her head in his hands, and with a soft sigh she met the teasing probe of his tongue with hers.

The hot water splashed down over them as he continued to kiss her in a way he never had before. It sparked so many things to life inside her she felt like her whole body was tingling, vibrating. He moved her slowly until her back pressed into the cool tiles beneath the showerhead and their kiss began to grow more heated. His fingers threaded into her hair and his lips trailed down her throat and along her collarbone, and her hands moved up his back to grasp beneath his shoulders.

His mouth trailed down her chest and closed over a rosy nipple as his arms slid around her waist tightly. She moaned softly, the moan turning to a pleasured gasp when he straightened back up and lifted her with him so she was straddling his thigh. She worked her fingers into his hair and arched into his amazing mouth, mewling in anticipated pleasure as she felt his palm press into the soft flesh of her other breast.

His other hand slid down her thigh and she shifted to straddle his hips, his hard length pressing against her hot center. They both moaned at the contact and he lifted his head to capture her lips again, his tongue gliding into her mouth lustfully. He supported her weight by leaning into her so both hands could suckle and lap at her breasts, and she moaned raggedly into his mouth. She rolled her hips against him, wanting to feel more. He groaned and his hands slid down her sides to grip her hips, and he pulled back to look at her with a lustful gaze. Their eyes stayed locked as he lifted and lowered her down, sinking slowly inside her inch by inch.

He lifted her again and brought her down upon him with another slow, deep thrust, and she moaned and tightened her arms around his back. His eyes slid shut at the feel of her pulsing and tightening around him, and he buried his face in her neck and began to rock into her in a slow, torturous way that was completely different from the last time they were in this position.

“God, Sakura…you feel so fucking good,” he whispered brokenly against her neck, almost inaudible under the sound of the cascading water, and his arms tightened around her almost desperately.

She moaned with his particularly deep thrust and gripped his hair and shoulder as she undulated against him. “S-so do you…ah!” she panted.

He continued to move within her in deep, easy strokes until they couldn’t control their slow rhythm any longer, and he worked her against him urgently until she cried out her release before finding his own a moment later.

They stayed joined against the wall for several moments, their arms around each other as she placed soft kisses along the top of his shoulder. Then he lowered her down with a lingering kiss and she grinned at him as they rinsed off and exited the shower.

Deidara grabbed one of the large fluffy white towels and wrapped it around her, then grabbed another and tucked it around his waist. She grabbed a smaller towel and moved close to him as she gently rubbed it over his hair. He smirked and closed his eyes, unused to this new level of intimacy, but quickly finding that he enjoyed it very much. When she was done she used the same towel to pat down her own much shorter hair, and he cupped the back of her neck to pull her in for a long, affectionate kiss.

“What happened to breakfast?” she asked playfully when they broke apart.

“Probably sitting outside the room door, yeah,” he said with a grin.

“So did you order me one of everything?” she teased, moving out of his grasp, but holding on to his hand as she stepped back.

He laughed, and when she turned away his features settled into a soft, thoughtful smile and he let her pull him out of the room.

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“I’m starting to think it was a bad idea to leave the room after all, yeah,” Deidara said. He leaned back against the low wall near the path they had been walking down and sighed, watching Sakura hop up to sit on top of the same wall and wondering how she could find the energy to do such a thing.

The rain had finally stopped some time after breakfast – which was technically lunch considering how late they’d slept, and they had decided to roam around the resort and hang out in an area where they would have a clear view of the service road it seemed most likely the sword transport would be arriving from. The only problem was, even though the rain had passed, the humidity remained. The sky was still overcast with only occasional bursts of sunlight, but that didn’t deter the heat any. The air was thick and uncomfortable, and they were sweating even while standing still.

“We haven’t seen any activity on that road all day,” Sakura grumbled, indicating the service road they had been surveying for hours on end from different locations. She shifted on her perch and her knee brushed Deidara’s elbow as she straightened her legs out in front of her for a moment. “What a waste of time,” she added with an irritated sigh.

“Well, we have nothing else to do besides waste time until it gets here. Whether that’s tonight or sometime tomorrow, all we can do right now is wait, yeah,” Deidara said casually as he raised a hand to stroke lightly up her smooth calf.

Her disgruntled expression softened at the motion and she reached out to play with the ends of his ponytail. “Well, at least we could be having fun while we waste time, not stand around and slowly die of heat stroke,” she grumbled again, though less irritably than before.

Deidara leaned his head back to look up at her and smirked. Just by touching her he’d calmed her annoyance and made her relax a little. He liked how responsive she was to him, and not just physically. But it also seemed to run both ways. It was strange that they were so attuned, but it was also nice to have someone who understood and related to you so easily. He didn’t have to explain himself or waste time trying to convince her with most things, and he never became bored or disinterested with the things she said. It was just easy to be around her.

“How can you stand to wear your hair like this when it’s so hot?” she asked, after a long moment passed comfortably between them. She lifted the pale blond strands away from his neck and felt they were slightly damp from the heat.

He shrugged, and his hand continued up her leg to caress over her thigh as he turned toward her. “Try running around in the deserts of Suna wearing an Akatsuki cloak, yeah. Compared to that, this is pretty tolerable.”

She smiled and looked thoughtful for a moment. “I still have my cloak, you know. It’s actually in my pack back in our room.”

Deidara grinned up at her and moved to stand between her knees, hands sliding over her hips to close loosely around her waist. “Yeah?” He already knew that of course, but he wasn’t going to say so. “I still have one too, another solid black one like yours.”

She let her hands fall from his hair to rest on his shoulders as he stepped in to her. “It means a lot to me. As strange and unwelcome as that situation was, in the end I was pretty happy with you guys, and I missed you all after it was over. Especially you,” she said softly, hunching over until her forehead touched his. His smile softened and his arms tightened around her waist. “I kept it as a reminder of our friendship and of the time I spent with all of you.” She paused and then laughed. “I think I’m the only person in the world who fondly remembers being a hostage.”

He chuckled. “That was the most un-hostage-like hostage situation I’ve ever participated in or heard of. You sure threw us all for a loop, yeah. And I have a memento of you too, remember?” She just looked at him curiously, and he brought his left hand between them out of the way of prying eyes.

The mouth in his hand grinned widely at her, revealing a gap where two of the teeth were missing. She laughed. “I forgot I did that to you. Did it ever cause you problems?” she asked.

He shook his head slowly. “My art is all about the tongue, not the teeth, yeah,” he said with an impish smirk.

She rolled her eyes playfully at the very intentional innuendo. He simply grinned at her, looking entirely too smug about it. But, at least his arrogance was merited. His hands slipped beneath the hem of her shirt to touch her skin, his thumbs rubbing light patterns against the small of her back. He pressed his lips to her collarbone and she closed her eyes, enjoying the moment.

She felt so contented, so natural like this, with Deidara, that she couldn’t believe a little over a week ago she had been like a completely different person. However, that wasn’t really her; that was the person she became to protect herself. She was happy now and felt like she could be herself once more, but she also felt very vulnerable. She had lowered her guard and now she was open to being hurt again. Deidara was a ninja and his life was violent and dangerous. While it was true he was very formidable with power to equal a kage’s, and he was currently doing work far below his skill level and there was little these days to seriously put his life in danger, it was always a possibility for even the best shinobi. And he was reckless in combat, and just as likely to off himself in some radical display of art as he was to be killed by an enemy.

She had grown up knowing that death was a part of the life she had chosen, and that she was bound to lose some friends and family along the way. That was why the rules of emotional detachment existed, to keep soldiers functioning when everyone around them died. But Sakura had never been any good at that part of being a ninja. She couldn’t help but love and let people close to her heart, and she couldn’t help but hurt when they were taken from her. She might have been ok if she had only lost a few precious people, and still had some left to live for and with. But she had lost them all. Except one, as it turned out. She couldn’t help but let him back in, and now she was so afraid of what might become of her if she lost him too.

But should that keep her from trying, from moving on and giving herself a chance to be happy again? No, she’d already attempted that strategy and failed, because she didn’t really want to push him away. It was too late now anyway. It had been too late the moment she woke up in that hotel room and saw him again after eight years. As soon as the thought ‘Deidara is alive’ passed through her mind, the walls she had built around herself began to crumble. She understood she was treading on dangerous ground here. She was bordering on some serious emotional dependency to him now, because he was the only person she had left, and he had been the one to help her and bring her back to life after years of dark depression. And now she had gone and made it worse, attaching herself to him even more by bringing sex into it.

But when it came right down to it she knew her feelings were genuine; she didn’t need to worry about her motives for wanting to stay with him. She wanted to be with him because she cared about him deeply, not because she needed him as some metaphorical floatation device. The real question was what did he want? She knew this development was still new and she should just give it time, but they didn’t really have time. They would be leaving here tomorrow night and once they delivered the sword a decision would have to be made to either stay together in some form or go their separate ways again. She honestly couldn’t imagine the idea of parting ways after finally being reunited. ‘Good job on the mission, see ya around sometime’ just didn’t cut it in this situation, but she wasn’t going to impose herself on him. She was aware she was over-analyzing again, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She didn’t think he was just planning to give her a friendly pat on the back and walk off into the sunset when this mission was over, but she didn’t want to assume anything about the current and/or future state of their relationship. Assuming about others’ feelings had produced some seriously bad results in her past, and she was not going to set herself up like that. Still, his feelings for her seemed genuine. When he looked at her it felt real. His touches, his kisses, and the way he made love to her all felt very real. This morning in the shower, it felt like it had gone to a deeper level of intimacy and she had felt like he needed her in that moment in more than a sexual way. But then again, she could just be seeing what she wanted to see. It wouldn’t be the first time.

She was pulled out of her internalizing when she noticed that Deidara’s chakra was just slightly agitated. Not enough to really be noticeable to others, but she was a medic and in close physical contact with him at the moment. He was also starting to fidget a little, his fingers tightening and loosening slowly against the small of her back as he stared at something over her shoulder. He was doing these things unconsciously, she realized, and it wasn’t the first time he’d done it today.

“What’s wrong?” she asked curiously, tilting her head down to see his face better.

“Hmm?” he straightened and looked up at her.

“You seem anxious about something.” She turned to look behind her briefly, but saw nothing out of place, just some buildings and hotel guests involved in various recreational activities. “A few times today, and even a bit yesterday, you’ve seemed a little restless and, well…fidgety,” she finished, looking at him again.

He made a small frown at her words, but he shook his head. “Nothing’s wrong, yeah.” He stood up fully and moved his hands from her waist to rest on the tops of her thighs as he stretched his neck. She didn’t look convinced, and he sighed in mild exasperation. “It’s just…missions like this aren’t really my thing, and they start to bother me after a while, yeah.”

She gave him a strange look. “Why did you take it then?” she asked, not really getting what he meant.

He looked at her like it should be obvious. “Money,” he said with a small shrug.

She couldn’t really argue with that; it was a lot of money and it was also her reason for accepting the job. But she still didn’t understand what he was so antsy about. “What’s so bad about it though?”

Now he looked slightly annoyed, and his fingers were absently twisting the hem of her shorts. “I don’t like undercover missions, ok? My style isn’t suited for it.” He looked up at her, and she could see a strange light burning in his eyes that wasn’t exactly pleasant. “I don’t like it when my art is repressed, yeah. When I have to do missions like this that interfere with my creative expression I tend to get a bit…worked up, and…well, I just don’t deal well with restrictions on my jutsu, yeah,” he said with a slight edge to his voice.

Sakura watched him with slightly widened eyes. Was he saying he was having withdrawals? He just blew up a whole building like, five days ago. What more did he want? “So you’re saying you’re having urges to blow things up?” she asked hesitantly, not quite sure how to handle this side of Deidara.

A fleeting grin that was more frightening than friendly passed over his features as he thought about it, and his hands tightened on her thighs. “Kinda, yeah. I mean…I don’t have anything specific in mind, but…it’s more like the fact that if I did want to, I can’t, and that really bothers me if I think about it too much.”

Sakura was somewhat relieved inside at hearing it was more a matter of his aversion to rules and restrictions than an actual compulsive need to create explosions on a frequent basis, but she was still a bit thrown off by him at the moment.

Then his chakra spiked a little and his expression turned slightly fanatical. “Although,” he said in a low, excited tone, “there is some stuff around here that would make great art in the final moment.” His hands slid up her sides as he grinned at her. “Like…that glass roof in the lobby, yeah. When it blows, all that glass would shower down to the floor like snow…beautiful, deadly snow engulfed by flames…and the sound it would make…like thousands of crystal bells…” His tone was almost reverent, practically a whisper as his fingers ghosted over her cheeks and into the soft hair at her temples, sweeping it back from her face as he leaned in closer, excitement burning in his eyes. “Can you imagine it? It would be amazing, yeah.” He whispered the last words against her cheek as his lips trailed lightly over her jaw.

She was just a little alarmed by his words. She knew he would never hurt her, but he was still unpredictable and dangerous to others at times, and she was slightly concerned about what he might do. He was practically vibrating with excitement at what he was picturing in his head, and his passionate words and the fervent look in his eyes were a good reminder that he wasn’t entirely sane.

And We are?

Inner Sakura had a point, she had to admit. The fact that Inner Sakura existed at all was proof that she wasn’t the most mentally sound person in the world either. She was a borderline schizophrenic with some intense anger management issues, so she didn’t really have room to point fingers at others for being crazy. Her only saving grace was that Inner and Outer Sakura were two sides of the same person, rather than two separate entities in the same body. Inner Sakura was actually the true Sakura, but she only vocalized as a separate consciousness when social restrictions or insecurity prevented Sakura from saying and doing what she really wanted, or when she was in denial about something

Basically, she was only crazy sometimes. Just like Deidara was only crazy sometimes, so as long as they weren’t both crazy at the same time it would all be fine right? And really, what ninja wasn’t just a little bit nuts to begin with anyway?

She gave him a small smile and interlocked her fingers behind his neck. “I’m sure it would be fascinating, but you couldn’t do it without hurting innocent people,” she said carefully, not wanting to sound like she was denying him lest she set him off. She’d talked him down before, she was sure she could do it again, and she had more tricks in her arsenal now that they were intimate. He frown-pouted at her words, so she hooked her legs behind his thighs and with her hands lifted his face up to focus on her rather than what he was thinking. “If you could figure out a way to do it and not harm people, I wouldn’t mind seeing it with you, after the mission is over,” she finished with a playful smile and then lowered her face to plant a lingering kiss on his lips.

Actually, what he was describing did sound fascinating, and she was being honest when she said she would like to see it. His passion for explosive art must be rubbing off on her. She didn’t care about the structure of the hotel; Shingo undoubtedly had plenty of money for repairs and he was almost certainly not an innocent artifact collector and businessman, so she felt no guilt there. She was ok with Deidara blowing the roof off the building, as long as it didn’t get anyone killed.

She continued to kiss him until his chakra settled and he calmed down. He responded eagerly to her, his fingers twisting in her hair as he pulled her downward to his level. Tired of straining to her elevated position, he simply grasped her hips and lifted her down between his body and the wall, and then moved with her before pressing her against a taller part of the sloping stone façade as his mouth slanted over hers and he deepened the kiss.

She broke away for air with a breathy laugh, and he continued his attentions on her neck. Apparently thinking about explosions excited him in other ways as well. That was good, he could use that as an outlet for his pent up energy. Good for me too, she thought as Deidara nibbled just below her earlobe and sent a shiver up her spine. They were in public, but they couldn’t really be seen where he’d moved them, and she had to admit the knowledge that there were people around was a bit exhilarating.

She leaned her head against the wall with a soft murmur of pleasure as his tongue ran lightly along the rim of her ear and he slipped his hand under the hem of her tank top, the mouth in his palm nibbling up her stomach. “You know, there’s one way that isn’t restricted at all,” she said in a low, seductive tone. He raised his head to look at her with a devious and utterly sexy smirk, and she trailed her fingertip along his jaw. “You can create all the art you want with me,” she said, her lips hovering just over his.

His smirk widened to a grin. “Oh believe me, I plan to, yeah,” he murmured, brushing his lips teasingly against hers and pulling back when she tried to make it a full kiss. The expression on his face as he looked at her made her heart flutter. “You’re amazing, you know that?” he said, surprising her and causing her to blush a little.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” she said warmly.

He grinned and tightened his hold around her waist. “Sure I am. And that’s why you like me, yeah,” he teased, and lowered his lips to her neck again.

She laughed softly and squirmed in delight as what he did tickled and turned her on at the same time. He was sort of right though. She did seem to be drawn to dangerous bad boys, or at least guys with something off-kilter about them. Sasuke had had more issues than she could count, Itachi had been a ruthless sociopath, Kakashi had fostered severe depressive tendencies and an addiction to literary porn, and Deidara was a borderline pyromaniac with an obsession for radical art. Her taste in men was even more proof or her own psychological issues. But she’d never worried too much about those things before, because her men had always treated her well no matter how crazy they were.

Deidara had always been good to her, and the way he made her feel right now was wonderful. But he was as unpredictable and volatile in character as he was in his fighting style, and he was maniacally obsessed with his own jutsu, to the point of being suicidal in the case of his ‘masterpiece’. Could she set herself up for the possibility that he may get tired of her, or recklessly get himself killed one day? Could she let herself fall in love with a man like that?

Sakura felt a wave of anxiety wash over her as she realized the implications of her thinking. She was more emotionally attached to him than she’d previously thought if she was asking herself a question like that, and it made things a whole lot more complicated because she still had no idea about what he really wanted from all of this. She was falling for him hard and fast, and she didn’t think she could stop herself if she tried. What if it wasn’t the same for him?

She pressed a soft kiss to his neck, the salty taste of his slightly sweaty skin lingering on her lips. She continued along his jaw until she got to his mouth, and he tilted his head and met her kiss hungrily. He playfully nibbled her bottom lip, and when she opened her mouth in a tiny smile he slipped his tongue inside and twined it sensually with hers. She mewled softly and pressed into him as he once again worked wonders on her senses.

When he pulled back she was breathless and flushed, her worried train of thought from a minute ago forgotten. “Is it just me or is it getting even hotter out here?” she asked, playing with him but also being partly serious.

He smirked at the effects he caused in her, but she also had a point. The sun was starting to set and the late afternoon haze was setting in, making the muggy air nearly unbearable. “It is getting hotter. I’m pretty sure we’re not gonna see anything today,” he referred to the reason they were out here, looking vaguely toward the service road with mild irritation. Then he met her eyes again and a mischievous smile formed on his lips. “Let’s head back to the room, yeah.”

“Are you serious? It’s way too hot to even think about sex! Just the contact we have now is making me sweat,” she said incredulously.

Deidara grinned. “Who said I was talking about sex, hmm? Pervert,” he teased.

She gave him a look. “Says the man currently groping my ass...”

He looked down at his hands as if he wasn’t fully aware he’d moved them to their new position. Then he shrugged. “It’s a great ass,” was his laid-back excuse.

She smiled appreciatively at his flattering words and ran her hands over his firm chest, admiring the way his snug tank top showed the definition of his lean muscles. “I bet it’s cooler down by the beach. Maybe we could walk back that way,” she suggested.

“Alright.” His hands slid up her rear to hold her waist again and he pulled her against him. His mouth hovered just over her ear, his warm breath tickling her deliciously. “Also,” he murmured in a low tone that made her feel all fuzzy inside, “you forget that our room has air-conditioning, yeah.” She felt him smirk against the shell of her ear before he pulled back.

Sakura gave him an alluring smile and they stepped away from the low wall and back onto the footpath, and she reached down to take his hand as they walked.

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The beach was definitely cooler and they enjoyed the refreshing feel of the ocean breeze as they strolled back to their suite, their sandals in one hand and their fingers gently interlocked on the other.

They took their time, and Deidara kept making her laugh by teasingly licking and nipping at her palm with the mouth in his hand. The people around them probably thought her ridiculous as she would spontaneously burst into giggles for no apparent reason, shooting playfully dirty looks at her partner who hadn’t appeared to do or say anything. He messed with her for several minutes that way before she stopped him by bringing their joined hands up and pressing her lips to his palm affectionately.

He suddenly halted his steps and stared at her with a look of amazement. He clearly hadn’t expected her to do something like that, and she recalled that he’d reacted similarly when she had messed with him that way in the office they hid in two nights ago. She didn’t think it a big deal; she hadn’t minded that mouth anywhere else on her body, quite the opposite in fact. His bloodline limit had never bothered her at all; it was just part of him. Sure, there were narrow-minded people who were freaked out and maybe repulsed by such an oddity, and maybe that’s what he was used to. But she was a ninja who’d had many comrades with even odder abilities, and as a medic she’d been exposed to a lot of weird stuff. She’d gone to school with a boy who had thousands of bugs living inside his body and called them out at will, so Deidara having mouths on his palms was mild in comparison. And any woman who experienced what he could do with those extra mouths would never think strangely about them again, she was sure of that.

But her gesture was obviously very significant to him, and he stared at her for another moment before an adorable, boyish grin spread slowly across his features. She smiled warmly as she lowered their hands and turned to start walking again. She looked back when she felt resistance tug at her hand, and he pulled her back toward him as he bent his head to capture her lips.

When Sakura was younger she’d dreamed of romantic moments like this, envisioning herself being passionately kissed by a gorgeous man on a tropical beach at sunset, and then he would take her back to their bed and make love to her over and over. Of course, in those youthful dreams the gorgeous man had dark hair and eyes and was as different from the real man kissing her as night from day. Just as the dreams of the boy had evaporated over time, so had the fanciful ideas of ever living out such ridiculously romantic scenarios. Yet here she was; in the last place she ever thought she’d be with the type of man she never imagined herself falling for, and she found that the reality was much better than those silly childhood fantasies.

By the time they got back to the room night had fallen and the humidity was significantly lessened. Sakura switched on the light by the door and the room was lit in a low ambient glow as Deidara walked over to the sofa and flopped down to stretch out lazily.

In a good mood and feeling playful, she joined him by nimbly hopping over the back of the couch and landing in his lap. Half sprawled as he was, he barely caught her as she landed on his middle, forcing an amused huff from him. She giggled and with some awkwardness managed to shift so she was straddling him.

His hands flexed over her hipbones and the look in his eyes told her what he was thinking about her current position. He lifted his hips slightly, and she gave him a playful smirk as her fingers moved beneath his shirt, raising it up inch by inch. He raised his arms and sat up a little to let her take it off, and then his hands were back, fingers slipping under the waistband of her shorts and tracing along the edge of her panties.

She smiled seductively as his fingertips left a trail of heat in their wake that pooled deep in her belly, and she absolutely loved the way he looked at her, like she was the only thing in the entire world that interested him. She caressed up the smooth expanse of his torso and bent to trail affectionate kisses over his lightly muscled chest. He made a soft sigh of enjoyment as he slipped his hands under her shirt to caress her back and sides as she curled over him.

Sakura was simply being affectionate more than trying to accomplish anything with her actions, though the easy, attentive way they touched each other was still having an amorous effect on both of them.

“I was just thinking…” she said softly with her cheek against his skin, her fingertips tracing over the abstract markings of his seal. He made a quiet murmur of acknowledgement, and she continued. “We haven’t used the hot tub yet…”

A smirk formed on Deidara’s lips at her suggestion. “Hmm…no we haven’t. It’d be a shame to leave without using it, yeah.”

She grinned at him. “My thoughts exactly,” she said, and leaned up to seal her lips with his in a brief kiss, pulling away before his magical tongue could trap her again. “I’ll get changed. Meet me there?”

“Mmhm,” he murmured, letting his hand slide over her leg as she got up, nipping the back of her upper thigh with a wicked smirk. She laughed and playfully stuck her tongue out at him as she headed toward the bathroom where she’d left her swimsuit.

Sakura emerged a few minutes later in her black tie-on bikini. She smiled to herself, remembering what Deidara said he thought about this particular article of clothing and wondering how he would react to her in it now that he didn’t have to keep his hands to himself. When she passed through the bedroom and entered the bamboo enclosure she saw Deidara relaxing in the warm swirling water with his arms up on the edge. He was facing the doorway, and his eyes roamed appreciatively over her lithe figure as she stepped down into the sunken spa.

She stood waist deep in the heated water, letting her hands smooth back and forth over the roiling surface. “This is different than an onsen,” she mused as she got used to the feel.

“Only the bubbling, and it’s artificially heated, yeah,” he replied.

Looking up at him with a playful smirk, she flicked her wrist to send a splash of water in his direction. He chuckled and raised a hand to block it, and then wrapped that arm around her waist as she moved to sit in his lap.

She noticed that he’d tied all of his hair up in a low ponytail, so only the very ends of it were getting wet as he sat chest-deep in the water, and most of his long forelock was tucked behind his ear. She slipped one arm around his neck and rested her cheek on his shoulder. “This is really nice,” she said quietly, her fingers trailing up and down his chest and abs. “I kinda wish we didn’t have to leave tomorrow, or ever.”

Deidara didn’t answer right away, his gaze unfocused on the surface of the water. His thumb stroked over her hipbone where his hand rested on her thigh, and he exhaled slowly in what could have been a sigh. “Yeah, me too,” he said finally.

Several quiet minutes passed as they relaxed in the warm water, enjoying each other’s touch. Sakura continued to run her fingers along his firm torso, not paying attention to the fact that her hand was steadily moving lower until she brushed over the small ridge of muscle above his hip bone and blinked, quickly coming out of her relaxed drowsy state.

“Deidara…” she said slowly, a bemused expression on her face as she stared blankly at his chest.

“Hmm?”

“Where are your swimming shorts…?” she asked, looking up to meet his gaze finally.

A roguish grin spread across his features, and he merely shrugged.

Sakura laughed and shook her head, wondering how she had been sitting on his lap for at least ten minutes and hadn’t noticed he was wearing nothing but a smile. “If I knew you planned to skinny dip I wouldn’t have bothered putting this on…”

“Why do you think I didn’t say anything, hmm? I wanted to see you in that bikini again,” he rasped, the backs of his fingers trailing over her stomach. “And I wanted to do this…” he pulled one end of the tie in front and the small scrap of material slipped to the sides, revealing much more of her breasts without falling completely open.

She giggled and pulled back, slipping off his lap to stand but making no attempt to re-cover herself. He didn’t move from his seated position, simply continued to watch her with a sly grin. She stood in the center, water swirling around her waist, and a seductive smile formed on her lips. She reached up to grasp the two open sides of her top, but instead of retying them she slowly and deliberately slipped the dark cloth from her bust, fully revealing her pert breasts and feeling a sharp thrill at the hungry look in his gaze. He didn’t look at her exposed chest at all; those ice-blue eyes were locked on to hers with a predatory gleam, and she felt heat build within her and her nipples tighten under the intensity and promise of his stare alone.

She continued the slow, seductive removal of her bikini top, and with a playful smirk she tossed it at his head as she backed away a bit more, moving to the far side. He caught it on a finger and dropped it on the tiled edge as he slowly stood and stalked toward her, his gaze never wavering.

Playing coy, she eased along the edge with a mischievous smile. His smirk widened as he caught on to her game, and when he reached out to grab her by the waist she giggled and snaked away from his grasp. He chuckled darkly and continued to close in on her, fingers grazing her waist or hands brushing a thigh as she continued to playfully evade him. The space wasn’t that big and he could have caught her in an instant, but that would ruin the fun.

Finally, wanting to enjoy his nearly naked prey, he swooped in on her and grabbed her from behind. She laughed as he spun around with her, splashing water over the edge and across the ground as he sat on the bench again with her in his lap, her back pressed against his chest. “Now that I’ve caught you, little hellcat, what should I do with you?” he growled low against her ear, sending a shiver through her entire body as his hands moved over her tummy, one moving upward, the other downward. “Hmm…I think I want to hear you purr.”

His teeth gently grazed her earlobe and she tilted her head with a sigh of pleasure. He nibbled and sucked against the skin of her neck as his hand closed over her bare breast, the tongue darting out and swirling around her tightened nipple before drawing it into the mouth and suckling gently. The slick muscle worked back and forth across the erect bud in a way that had her squirming and gasping within seconds. Her arms lifted and linked behind his neck as she arched into his hand with a soft mewl.

His other hand continued its descent until his fingers hooked under one side of her bottoms and with a slow pull the ends slipped open. His fingers slid just under the front edge until they reached the other side and undid the last tie. The scrap of black material came away easily, and he tossed it up on the edge with her top before his hand returned beneath the surface and his fingers skimmed up the length of her inner thigh, all while his other hand continued to lavish attention on her breast. She was already panting with pleasure and anticipation, and he loved how responsive she was to him. “I love the sounds you make for me, Sakura, like their own little works of art,” he rasped, his breath tickling over her ear and neck. His fingers ghosted over the patch of soft pink curls between her legs. “Especially when I touch you here…”

He was rewarded with a sharp, breathy moan as his fingertips brushed over her hot opening. She was already wet, the slick moisture of her desire different than the liquid swirling around them, and the knowledge that he turned her on so quickly and easily sent a jolt straight to his groin. He was used to women getting worked up quickly with him, after all he had a few advantages, but Sakura was by far the most passionate and responsive, not to mention the most beautiful when aroused. She was truly a masterpiece, superior in every way.

His fingers moved away and she made a small sound of disapproval at the lost contact, but he distracted her again by his hand gently pulling her taut nipple between its teeth as his own mouth trailed hotly over her throat. She sighed raggedly and turned her head to his and he caught her lips in a searing kiss, his tongue gliding into her mouth as he lifted her thigh over his, spreading her legs apart. She whimpered, knowing what was coming, and he ended the kiss with a wicked smirk as his hand slid back up her thigh and his fingers stroked the length of her slick womanhood. He slowly slipped one finger inside of her and she moaned, her hips rolling as her arousal intensified. A second digit joined the first and her head fell back against his shoulder with a pleasured gasp.

“Deidara…mmhh…” she panted close to his ear, her face turned into his neck.

She was unable to stay still now, her groin and chest straining against both of his hands as her heavy breaths were quickly becoming small, panting moans. Her pleasured writhing and his name moaned from her lips were incredibly arousing, and he was almost painfully hard just from touching and listening to her. He couldn’t wait to replace his fingers with another part of him that he knew would make her moan even louder, but he wasn’t quite finished with her this way yet.

The third tongue flicked out to lap over the swollen button of nerves he hadn’t touched until now, and she writhed against him with a loud moan as the already intense pleasure he was giving her became white-hot and she began to tremble. He smirked against her neck as teeth enclosed her nipple, and he pushed his fingers deep within her as the mouth of that hand closed over that most sensitive spot and sucked gently. Her moans became a constant string of pleasured cries and her body felt like it was bursting into flames as he sent her racing toward the edge. Suddenly her fingers tightened against his shoulders and her body arched stiffly as she came with a long, breathy moan. He held her against his chest as she shuddered and gasped her release, not letting up on his ministrations until she collapsed against him again in a boneless heap.

She took a moment to catch her breath and turned her face to look up at him. “How the hell did you get so good at that?” she asked breathily.

He looked down at her flushed face and a sly grin spread across his features. “Art is a bang, yeah.”

She laughed softly and tried to give him a playful swat, but she couldn’t really move just yet and ended up tapping him on the shoulder. “You’re such a cocky bastard,” she said, her tone teasing. He merely chuckled and lowered his face to capture her lips with his. She responded passionately, parting her lips at the soft touch of his tongue and letting him deepen the kiss. She turned in his arms, their lips parting as she moved to the side to kneel over him.

She gave him a sexy smirk and moved across him to straddle his lap again, facing him this time. “You know…you’re not the only one with a few tricks up their sleeve,” she murmured, one arm wrapping around his neck and the other trailing down the ridges of his abdomen. “One of these times…I’ll be the one making you scream,” she whispered against his lips as she took him in her hand.

He sucked in a sharp breath and closed his eyes as her fingers stroked up his hard length and closed around him tightly. “Is that so?” he whispered, his lips brushing over hers, nibbling playfully.

She sighed as he lifted his hips against her hand, the tip of him rubbing against her heated center. “Mmhm…I would do it right now…but I can’t hold my breath that long…”

Deidara’s eyes opened wide at her provocative words, and the next thing he knew she was sinking slowly down upon him until he was buried inside of her. He made a soft hiss at the feel of her tight and hot around him, and he gripped her hips as she began to move.

Sakura tightened her hold around his neck and their lips met as she rocked and ground against him, the warm liquid swirling around their bodies giving them even more heightened sensation. He lifted his hips to go deeper inside her and they both groaned. His hands roamed up her torso and cupped her breasts firmly, tongues immediately ravishing her sensitized flesh and making her moan loudly against his mouth. She finally broke away from his lips as her pleasure spiraled higher and her breath quickened.

Unable to take her torturously slow pace any longer he gripped her ass firmly and stood up, lifting her onto his hips and turning their still-joined bodies around. He sat her on the edge and she lifted her legs to wrap around him, her thighs parting allowing his thrusts to go deeper.

“Unhh…Deidara…more…,” she panted against his neck, their angle amazing but not enough to bring her to release again.

His hand worked into her hair and he kissed her passionately as he lowered her backward, and she braced her hands against the tiled floor as he laid her out on her back. He trailed hot, open mouthed kisses down her chest and stomach as he straightened back up, grasping her thighs as he began to thrust into her again.

This new angle allowed him to hit incredibly deep, and her eyes snapped closed as she moaned wildly. Her fingers clawed futilely at the wet tiles as he shifted the angle of his hips, stimulating that perfect spot inside her with every thrust.

His breaths were shallow and rapid as he began to lose himself in the feel of her, hot and velvety around him. She felt incredible, and he didn’t know if he could last much longer this way. A primal groan escaped his lips as she contracted tighter around him as she neared her release. “Sakura…”

She heard the warning beneath the pleasure in his tone, and she bucked her hips upward as the heat within her coiled and intensified to an almost unbearable level. “Oh, god…harder…”

There wasn’t a man alive who didn’t love hearing that, and with a pleasured growl he gripped her thighs and drove into her hard and fast. Her moans became louder and longer as she began to topple over the edge, and he brought his hand to her abdomen and pushed down where he knew that pleasure spot was inside her, and the tongue flicked over the nub outside as he continued his hard thrusts.

She screamed as she came instantly, her back arching off the ground as her orgasm exploded within her. He quickly found his own release with a broken groan as he watched his lover’s ecstasy, gorgeous and writhing beneath him, her breasts heaving as he emptied himself inside her, both of them finding completion in a moment of perfect, radiant art.

Exhausted, he eased forward and rested his forehead on her flat tummy, supporting his weight with his elbows on either side of her. She cradled his head against her abdomen, her fingers easing through the strands of his hair as they brought their breathing under control. “Damn…” she whispered breathlessly, barely able to keep her eyes open after such an intense experience.

He nodded against her belly, feeling incredibly drowsy himself and wondering if he would even be able to move off of her. “Uh-huh…” he murmured back, a silly grin on his features.

Sakura laughed almost inaudibly. “If we don’t move I’m going to fall asleep right here.”

“Me too, yeah,” he said with tired amusement, bracing himself and placing a kiss above her navel before pushing up. He climbed out of the hot tub and grabbed the towels laid aside. She lifted her hand to him lazily and he grinned at her before reaching down and pulling her up, wrapping a towel around her in the process and then securing his own.

She finished drying off and stepped forward to slip her arms around his waist, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, sighing in contentment as he held her and began to walk them into the bedroom where they fell on the bed with soft laughter, their towels falling to the floor. She slipped beneath the covers and he followed, limbs curling and wrapping around one another as they got comfortable.

He kissed her softly, unhurried and without intent, and she pulled his long hair free of its tie to fall over his shoulders. “Goodnight, Deidara,” she whispered sleepily, snuggling into his chest.

“Goodnight, Sakura,” he whispered into her hair, his arm tightening around her smaller frame as he closed his eyes and smiled.

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A/N: some sweet moments, some darker moments, and some things they are afraid to admit even to themselves…oh, and, some fun with water. This chapter may have seemed like there wasn’t a lot happening, but there is a lot going on under the surface if you look closely…; )

See you next week!