It's All About Strategy

Title: It’s All About Strategy
Pairing: Shikamaru / Temari
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters portrayed in this work of fiction.
Warnings: Limey-lemon, a bit OOC, a bit of humor

Notes: One-shot that’s been breeding in my head for about a month now. Stretching my muse back into shape.

Revision 7/15/05: I noticed I used the "best of you" or "getting the better of" a bit in the later part of the story. Funny how music can influence writing, I had the Foo Fighters' "Best of You" playing during the majority of the writing.

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"And this was all we could afford?"

He grunted an affirmative, words not being necessary in his reply.

Temari stared around the shabby little room; a single bed with ragged covers, a nightstand with a single lamp, a rusted clock, a dirty window, and that was it. No plush comforter, no floor rugs, not even a washing basin. She shuddered to think of what condition the inns public facilities were in.

After taking a few steps into the room to see if there was anything nice she had happened to overlook in the drab gloom of their accommodations, she turned to face her traveling partner.

"Honestly, Shikamaru, your village couldn't afford to get us anything better than THIS?"

The muttered growl coming from his permanently scowl-ridden face was a warning both not to complain about what he couldn't fix and not to attack the financial status of Konoha village. Between the expense of repairs from the attack by Orochimaru, as well as the cost of hiring extra military personnel from the allied villages to make up for the lost numbers in their ranks, a travel budget for diplomat escorts wasn't exactly in the accounting books. Of course, the lack of answer wasn't going to deter Temari from further questioning him.

"Don't just growl at me, or are words too 'troublesome' for you to use?"

She finally hit a raw nerve with her mockery of his habits. Still silent, he brushed past her, letting the creaky wooden door slam behind him as he deposited his pack on the floor and flopped back onto the lumpy mattress. His arms were soon folded behind his head while one leg was folded up, knee in the air, with the other crossed over it. His favorite cloud watching position, only there were no clouds to watch today, only the peeling paint of the ceiling, and suddenly a pair of blonde pigtails, followed by a rather angry female face.

"Are you listening? And what do you think you're doing on the bed? If anyone gets the bed, it should be me."

His eyes, having squeezed shut moments after she invaded his staring space, allowed one to creak open in reply to her voice.

"I paid for it, I get the bed," was his only reply before shutting the eye once more.

"It was my suggestion that we stop. Plus I'm the woman, it's un-gentlemanlike of you to take the bed before the lady."

Temari almost winced at her last point; she couldn't even begin to consider Shikamaru ever acting like a gentleman, let alone allow herself to be seen as the more fragile part of the team just because she was female. She hated to be seen as the weaker sex, but two days straight of travel was taking its toll on her body, and now that she had a chance to sleep in legitimate quarters, no matter how shabby, she wasn't beyond playing up her feminity a little.

He muttered something intelligible, rolled to his side, and shifted over, kicking his sandals off in the process.

"What was that?"

"I said if you want the bed so badly you're sharing it."

She was halfway between placing her fan beside her pack and beating him to death with it when her reason spoke up and she dropped it to the floor. It wouldn't do to return to her village with a dead escort. Gaara would have her head for destroying relations he had worked so hard to build after the murder of their father. She was sick of arguing with him, a bath was really the only thing on her mind at the moment.

"Fine. I'm going to the bathhouse, if this crappy little town has one. And I expect you to do the same. I won't share a bed with someone dirty." With that, she gathered her washing pack and headed out the door. Shikamaru grumbled something ending in "troublesome" and rolled off the bed to gather his bathing supplies.

A few hours later Temari stood on one side of the bed, dressed in a pair of training shorts and a loose shirt, glaring down Shikamaru who was standing on the opposite side clad in nothing but a pair of boxers.

"You are not getting in this bed like that. Pants and a shirt, now."

"Feh. It's hot in here and with two in the bed it'll only be worse."

"At least I had the decency to cover up. Or are you that lazy that the act of putting on pants is beyond you?"

"Be glad I put the boxers on," he muttered while climbing into his half of the bed.

She winced at the mental image. She knew the habits of guys his age, Kankuro slept in the nude almost all the time, but that was her brother, this was her lazy escort. Still, sleep was getting the best of her and she decided to forgo the argument and get what comfort she could. Not a moment after she had clicked off the light the shifting began.

"Your foot."

"What?"

"Move your foot, it's digging into my calf."

"Well your spiky hair is hitting my forehead, don't you take it out?"

"..."

"What, too troublesome?"

"Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Mocking me."

"Oh? Am I? Did I hit a nerve? OW!"

"No, but I bet that did."

"How dare you kick me? You bastard!"

"You're taking all the covers."

"I thought you were complaining it was hot!"

"I'm not sleeping uncovered."

"Then put some pants on!"

They laid in silence; both too worked up to sleep, but too tired to continue the silly argument.

Suddenly, the tension in the air was broken with a shift of Shikamaru's body.

"Quit squirming so much."

"Then give me some more room."

"You've got half the bed already, what do you want me to do, sleep on you?"

The silence was back. What had to be the longest minute in the history of time passed slowly with the ticking of the bed stand clock. Steady breathing was all that signaled life in the dark room, until another rustle of blankets and a slightly shocked gasp.

"What are you-" Temari was cut off abruptly as Shikamaru's mouth covered hers in a clumsy kiss. She was now laying half over him, her one leg resting between his knees while the other straddled his thigh. His hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her deeper into the kiss as the shock subsided and a sort of primal lust began to take over their combative moods. She broke the kiss and pulled his hands off, shoving him up and back against the wall into a sitting position before straddling his lap to resume the exploration of his mouth. He growled a little, breaking the kiss to trace his way down her jawbone and to the sensitive flesh between her neck and shoulder.

Neither of them could comprehend how they got to the state they were in, but neither cared to stop the building pleasure they were sparking within each other. Shikamaru's hands roamed up Temari's nightshirt and cupped the soft flesh beneath, eliciting a moan from her parted lips. She pulled back and jerked the shirt off, tossing it aside before reaching back up to grasp the back of his head and pull him into another kiss, untying his ponytail in the process and messing the spiked mass of black hair out of its puffy shape.

He pushed her back onto the bed and hovered over her on his knees, hands skimming down her sides, brushing across her nipples and then sliding down to remove her shorts. She was panting lightly now as her hand roamed up to her own chest, teasing a nipple as stronger hands began to work their way up the inside of her thighs. As calloused fingers pressed into her entrance, she bit her lip to stifle a moan of pleasure that threatened to escape her mouth. She was enjoying this entirely too much, and she wasn't about to admit to him that he was damn good at what he was doing. With two fingers working inside her, his thumb found the center of her pleasure and that shattered her grasp on her pride. With a breathless cry of his name, she reached the peak of pleasure and shuttered as her body climaxed with one good manipulation of his hand.

If it wasn't so dark, she could've seen the grin that spread across Shikamaru's face at the moment of her climax. Finally, he managed to triumph over her in some way...and not a bad way at all.

Temari wasn't going to let it end there, though, not when she had yet to better him. After nearly a year of frequent missions with the lazy genius, she had gotten to know about his ego. If she left it at that, he would have the silly notion that he had gotten the better of her. Half recovered from the post-orgasm haze, she once again reversed their positions and pinned him against the wall, removing his boxers with the lightning-fast speed that was common to their jobs.

He wasn't nearly as shocked at the quickness of her removal of his clothing as he was at what came next. Within seconds, she was working him up further, hand stroking his already stimulated erection into a painful frenzy. He almost lost his nerve when her mouth slipped over the hard length, teasing him closer and closer to the edge with tongue and teeth being applied lightly to all the right spots. He panted for air, and finally pulled her back before she got the best of him.

Another awkward pause, allowing a dangerous few seconds for unspoken questions to arise.

What the hell are we doing?

How did this start?

How'd she get so good at that?

Has he done this before?

The questions remained unspoken and unanswered as Shikamaru reclaimed the aggressive position and shifted over her, pressing his frustration to the opening of her body. Roughly, her hands gripped his backside and pulled him into her completely, causing a moan of pleasure to escape both their mouths as hard flesh caressed velvety warmth and the battle was back on. He rocked into her experimentally, trying to find the angle that caused her to moan the loudest. But he didn't get to test her body for long before she wrestled control back to her corner and shifted her weight onto his lap. She pulled back from him almost completely before thrusting forward, pushing him deep inside her body. His hands groped upwards, catching her breasts as they swayed above him. He worked her nipples with hands and tongue as she rode him faster, both trying to make the other climax first. Finally, with a muffled groan, Shikamaru came, triggering the clenching of Temari's body and her own finish almost instantly after.

They lay there for a few minutes, breathing steadily as the fog lifted from their lust-clouded minds. Reality set in slowly, and Shikamaru pulled out from her body and turned his back to her as she did the same. Another agonizing moment of silence passed with the pair still unwilling to admit what had just transpired between them. Shikamaru was the first to break the silence.

"I win."

"Huh?"

"Twice. You only got me once."

"What are you talking about?"

"Once with my hand, then once more. You only got me once in the end. I win."

"Are you saying that was a competition?"

"No. But I still won."

"You didn't give me a chance to."

He smirked a little, which turned into a full-on grin as he felt her hands on his returning erection.

"Round two. You'll never get the best of me, Shikamaru."

"I already have...” he thought before the pleasure overrode his brain.

Meanwhile, the owner of the inn sat in his office counting out the day's profits, shaking his head. Traveling ninja were a common sight, but this pair had been one of the oddest cases. Who pays for a two-bed suite and requests a one-bed budget room? He didn't understand what the man had meant by "strategy of the game" but the coins clinked into his till without further thought.

"Tsumu. " Shikamaru smirked at the exhausted woman beside him. Finally, the game was his. [1]

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Hah, finished in less than 2 hours. This was originally titled “Being Poor is Troublesome” but then the competition/game element came into play during writing and I had to rename it. I may have gone a little silly/OOC in some of the dialogue, but this was meant to be a short little one-shot to get back into the swing of things. Hope you enjoyed!

[1] - "mate" the statement called out by the winner at the end of a game of shogi (one of Shika's favorite pastimes ^^;) Translation obtained from www.shogi.net/shogivocab/