Simple Like Tea

Reiko kept her eyes respectfully downcast, though the urge to glare at the wrinkled old creatures across the tatami mat was surprisingly strong. She sat quietly, behind Byakuya and to the right, and hadn’t spoken once except to introduce herself at the gruff and impolite request of the elder that had looked oldest.

“Byakuya-san,” he was hissing now, though Reiko still felt his eyes on her. “This is in direct defiance of our agreement.”

“If you remember clearly, Genichi-dono,” Byakuya’s voice was calm with a hint of warning that perhaps the old man couldn’t detect, “the requirements were eliminatory. She is not from Rukongai, nor is she a lower-ranking member of the Seireitei.”

“Trickery? You would stoop so low as to resort to trickery?” The elder’s voice shook with fury.

“Loopholes, Genichi-dono. Not trickery.” Byakuya’s voice was smug. She could almost picture his expression and it nearly made her smile.

Again, she felt the heated gaze of the elder on her. “How old are you?”

Reiko looked up demurely and saw the question for what it was, despite the gruff tone of voice. It was defeat. “I’m almost twenty-seven years old, Elder-sama.”

The elder snorted at her perfect compliance. “A child. These women from the real world age so quickly. Can she even carry your heirs?”

“I believe my sister’s current condition is evidence that it is indeed possible.” Byakuya sounded amused now, and more self-assured. He had heard the defeat as well.

“Is she fertile?” the elder was no longer speaking to Reiko, and she had to fight the surge of outrage at the question.

“Yes, her records show that she has indeed been with child before, although complications prevented her from carrying it to term.” Her heart fluttered at the mention of her previous pregnancy. He spoke of it so calmly, as though speaking of her education or work experience.

“Then she is too weak to carry a child to term?” the elder looked triumphant.

“The complications were external, not internal.” Again, Byakuya sounded too calm.

The elder glared, not seeming to understand, before sighing and shaking his head. More defeat was apparent in his face when he spoke again. “You have made a grave mistake, Byakuya-san. Your first wedding was a mistake, and now this. It would have been better if you had learned your lesson by now. The elders had wanted more for you than…” he sighed again. “The ceremony will be held tomorrow as scheduled. The servants will make sure she is prepared by then. She should be seen to straight away.” The dismissal was impossible to miss.

Reiko bowed respectfully, much deeper than Byakuya, before rising to her feet and turning to the door. “Byakuya-san,” the elder spoke with a warning tone, and she felt him stiffen behind her. “Make sure nothing goes wrong.”

“Hai.” With a gentle hand on the small of her back, Byakuya pushed her forward, stepping quickly behind and leading her down the halls, away from the wings where the elders lived. “You did well,” he murmured to her, not looking in her direction.

She smiled calmly at him. “I did nothing.”

She heard him sigh then, a tired sound that made her heart ache. It was the sigh of someone with far too much weight on his shoulders, far too much sorrow in his heart.

“You were married before,” she said thoughtfully. She couldn’t remember Renji mentioning it. Byakuya glanced at her out of the corner of his eye but said nothing. “What happened to her?”

“She died,” he said simply, and Reiko bit her lip. “It was a long time ago.”

“But she had no children?” Her head screamed at her to stop this inappropriate line of questioning, but just like the night before when her legs had taken her to his chambers without permission, her mouth was running on its own.

“She had poor health.” Momentarily, his face became harder, but in his eyes she saw genuine sorrow, genuine pain.

“You must have loved her very much,” she said, again her mouth running without permission. She was surprised when he was no longer beside her, and she turned to look at him where he had stopped a few steps back.

“I did,” he said quietly, his voice thick with emotion. “I loved her very much. I…” He looked over his shoulder as a servant scurried out of a room, hurrying down the direction they’d just come from. Wordlessly, he took the few remaining steps towards her and put his hand back on the small of her back, leading her down the halls until he stopped outside her rooms. The expressionless mask was back in place, and he said nothing, refusing to look at her as he stood waiting for her to enter. “I will send the servants to help you prepare for tomorrow.”

“Byakuya-sama,” she said, feeling the sudden weight of tomorrow. “You and I will be wed tomorrow.” The words were barely a whisper, but she knew he heard her. “I wish we could spend a little bit of time talking. I know nothing about you.”

He looked at her then, his dark eyes piercing and intense. His face always so empty looked different with eyes blazing the way they did now. She saw fissures forming in the steely self-control he had displayed since that first day he had walked into her shop. “You… are facing unpleasant circumstances.” His voice was tense with guilt and pity. “The events that brought you here swept you up in their path, and you were powerless to stop it, to defend yourself against it.” He clenched his jaw, and his body went rigid with tension. “Why are you so calm? Why don’t you fight?”

Reiko blinked at him in surprise. She had expected any number of things to happen when the self-control finally gave into the torrent of emotion underneath, but this wasn’t one of them. “My o-jii-san used to tell me that a lady should accept all things with grace. I am powerless to fight my destiny.” She thought again of the gods, of their final punishment for her. She smiled sadly to herself. “This is happening for a reason. It must be a good reason. Who am I to fight reason?”

Suddenly he gripped her arm, and she looked up at him, alarmed as he dragged her into the room and slid the door shut behind him. When he turned on her again his face was burning with some unnamed emotion as he shook her slightly. “Your life is over. Your teashop is gone. Your relationship with the man you might have loved is ended. I’ve offered you nothing but trickery and lies, and yet here you stand, talking to me about destiny and good reason, asking to spend some time getting to know me before we are wed. Have you no urge to run? No desire to take back your life? Aren’t you afraid?”

The terror that had lived in her since she was a child bubbled to the surface, and she desperately fought it back, barely maintaining her controlled expression. “My life has never been mine. It has simply passed from hand to hand, and now it has passed into yours.”

“But you’re afraid,” he persisted, shaking her again. “You’re afraid of me.”

She shook her head mutely, not trusting her voice.

“You’re lying. I can hear your heart beating. You’re afraid of me. You’re afraid I might hurt you. You’re afraid I might kill you. You have no protectors, no one to save you from me. Your life is at my mercy. That frightens you.”

“Baka!” she surprised even herself with the intensity of her cry, and Byakuya’s face was openly shocked as he dropped her arm from his grip. She had never seen so much emotion on his face, and it spurred her on. “When did I ever have a protector? When was anyone there to save me? Do you think I’ve ever taken it for granted that someone will rescue me in my times of need? Are you so foolish and blind as to believe that I have ever been anything but completely alone?”

He swallowed. “Alone.”

Reiko rubbed her arm where he had grabbed her. It reminded her of Renji and she bit her lip, glaring angrily at her feet. “That teashop was my life. Everything I had, I poured into it. The only reason I got out of bed was to run it. I only left the house to accomplish tasks towards it. I only spoke to people in service of it. Everything for the past seven years has been about my tea. My life was simple. And one day I was just walking down the street, and I saw a young man, looking troubled, looking like he may cause trouble, and I spoke to him. Now nothing is simple. Everything is complicated. Your politics, your games, your world. I don’t understand anything. I don’t know anything. I’m blind and deaf and mute and you ask me why I’m not fighting. Who should I fight? Where do I run? What waits for me there? I’ve run out of the frying pan and into the fire so many times already it’s laughable. That’s my life. That’s who I am.”

Byakuya cursed, and she looked up at him in shock. She never could have imagined a profanity leaving that mouth. He was looking at her with a tortured expression, emotions warring on his face too quickly for her to identify any of them. With a sigh, he fixed a determined look on her, and before she could blink he had stepped forward and embraced her, holding her close to his chest. She was frozen in disbelief, not understanding the sudden changes in the man. Sighing, she wrapped her arms around his waist, letting the closeness comfort her. If she couldn’t understand him now, she reminded herself she had never understood him before. He smelled like spring, she noted, a floral scent that belied the hard muscles she could feel through his clothing. She felt his chin on her head, then felt his breath by her ear.

“Byakuya-sama,” she whispered, unsure what to ask, uncertain what to say.

“I’ll protect you,” he said in a low voice, his breath tickling her ear. “I’ll be the one to save you when you need rescuing.”

Her heartbeat accelerated and she clutched the fabric of his robe. Was this really the same man who had written her that letter a few short days ago? The man that had, with a few simple words, broken her heart? The man who had spoken to her with a cold calculation in his voice about her role in his political maneuver to bring her here? This was the same Byakuya that had gripped her arm so tight she was certainly bruised? She couldn’t reconcile the men in her mind. Now, with his body folded protectively around her, his murmurs possessive in her ear and his heart beating loudly just under her cheek, he could have been an entirely different person.

Unthinkingly, she nuzzled his chest, inhaling deeply the floral scent that she immediately liked. Sakura, she decided. He smelled like Sakura blossoms. His response was instantaneous, and when she felt his hands on her neck, she instinctively looked up at him. His face was calmer, but the emotions that had flickered there before were in his eyes, and she identified some of them now. Pain. Confusion. Tenderness. She watched in slow motion as he carefully leant and kissed her forehead. The point of contact burned, and she shivered as electric currents ran down her spine. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised, looking into her eyes.

She nodded, unable to find her voice, let alone the words to respond. She stood on her toes and kissed the triangle of skin visible between his scarf and kimono, the only place she could reach, and she heard his sharp intake of breath. An old warning her o-jii-san had given her rang in her ears suddenly. There’s a word for girls like you and your mother, Reiko… Right then, she didn’t care. Throwing caution to the wind, she gripped the edges of his scarf and tugged his face down to her, snatching his lips between her own.

***

When she kissed him – and kissed him violently – Byakuya wasn’t sure what to think. His dream from the night before was vivid in his mind’s eye. The way she felt in his arms now, warmer and more real than she had in his dream, was doing strange things to him. When she growled, a primal sound that was far more enticing than it was threatening, and tugged him closer by wrapping her fingers in his hair, he clutched at her, yanking her up to him so that her feet left the ground completely, and she was a prisoner of his arms. The long-elusive sexual appetite that he had questioned himself for not seeming to have the other night roared to life, fierce and demanding, overcoming all other modes of thought or rationale. Something inside him snapped, and his mind presented him with a sea of images on what he could do to the girl – no, not girl, the woman in his arms, for there was no question in his mind now that she was every inch a woman, a spectacular woman that had shocked him into admiring her again and again in a way no one else ever had – what he could do to the woman in his arms to make her blush and melt and come undone for him.

Her tongue was demanding against his lips, and he parted them obediently, shuddering when she coaxed his tongue to return her affections, inviting him into her warm mouth where she playfully bit his tongue. He groaned then, and she shivered in his arms in response. Delightful.

Reluctantly, he released her mouth, gasping for breath, staring into her fierce expression. Her eyes blazed at him, want and need swimming in the depths of her twin pools. Could it be that he found the expression… sexy? Again the silent monster inside him took control, and before he had a chance to process the urge he had slammed her back into the wall, grinding himself against her in a desperate attempt to ease some of the aching pressure in his crotch. She gasped, clutching the front of his kimono and wrestling with the tie of his hakama, and he was shocked to find his own hands were tugging impatiently at her obi. He tossed it aside just as she wrapped her arms around his neck for another hungry kiss, throwing himself into the taste of her, the sweetness of her lips, the minty scent of her thicker, muskier now that she was so close.

She lifted a leg to wrap around his waist and he grabbed her hips, lifting her up so she could wrap both her legs around him, grinding against him much the same way he had ground against her. He pulled aside the folds of her kimono, and it fell open to reveal creamy white skin obscured by hateful underwear and nothing else. He kissed along her jawline, nibbling her earlobe before leaving a hot trail of kisses down the side of her neck, and she leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes fluttering closed in pleasure. “Now!” she gasped when he cupped her breasts through her bra, her legs tightening around his waist. “Do it now!”

Byakuya reached down and cupped her through her panties, and immediately felt the moisture seeping through the thin cotton. She was ready for him, soft and needy and wet, and the thought was more arousing than he could have imagined. H reached into his hakama to pull himself out, fully erect, and rub against the spot where the moisture had gathered.

She moaned, a feminine uninhibited sound that again had Byakuya thinking of his dream, and opened her eyes to look at him. The want and need that had merely blazed before were viciously hypnotic now, and she bit her lip in agitation, presenting such a delicious image with her face red and heated and her hair falling around her shoulders in loose and messy strands. “Byakuya-sama, now!”

He moved her panties to the side, and immediately the head of his cock was coated in her wetness. Instantly his entire body tingled at the feeling, and he had neither the mind nor the will to be gentle with her as he pushed in, her weight impaling her on him to the hilt. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she cried out, not a breathy moan or a husky growl, but a shriek of satisfaction that made him feel lightheaded. Inside her was the hottest wettest softest thing he had ever felt, pulsing and twitching and ceaselessly squeezing. If he thought the sound of her cries was something, he clearly had not anticipated the effect of being inside her like this.

Immediately she was rocking against him, trying to increase the friction, to feel the perfect fullness – longer than Renji though not as thick she noted, if she was going on feeling alone – rub against that spot that itched inside her. She had never felt so frenzied, so frantic in all her life, not with any of the countless men she had been with, not once. All she wanted was for him to move, to thrust into her with reckless abandon, to make her scream like an animal. He did not disappoint. He gripped her arms, pinning her effectively to the wall as he moved against her roughly, choking back low grunts and, once or twice, an oath.

She felt so incredible, so responsive, her legs pulling him deeper into her, her hips moving in perfect sync with his thrusts. He adjusted his grip, catching one of her hands by the wrist while his other pressed into her hips, angling her so he could slide in and out faster, harder than before. She hissed her appreciation, her free hand pressing into the back of his neck to pull him forward for another violent kiss. He released her wrist to wrap his second arm around her waist, adjusting the angle of her hips again and she cried out again, that shriek of satisfaction, muffling it by biting down so hard on his lip she drew blood.

The taste of his blood excited her, and she found herself rapidly approaching a bright white light. With Renji it had been a fire that had built in her blood and burst, but now she was standing in the trajectory of a freight train, and her orgasm hit her with the same force as one. She was blinded by the light, and all she could hear was the loud thrum of blood in her ears, roaring with her crescendo and trapping her in it for a series of endlessly perfect moments.

He felt her shudder and twitch in his arms, but he was only faintly aware of it, because suddenly the wet heat inside her was a fist, and the force with which it gripped him was something he had no hope of fighting against. He slammed into her one last time, and as soon as he felt his release he lost all control of his body, his knees giving out, his neck too weak to hold his head up. He was still holding her with her back against the wall when he opened his eyes, on his knees now, with her in his lap. His head was resting on the crook of her shoulder, and they were both gasping and panting as though they’d spent hours in the menos forest. He couldn’t ever remember feeling so… good. For a long minute afterwards, they remained unmoving, regaining their breath, calming their racing hearts.

But now that the frenzied passion of their love making was over, he felt suddenly awkward, and very indecent. He hastily unwound his arms from around her. How had he allowed himself to violate her like that before being properly wed? And in what way! Against a wall, no finesse, no foreplay, no tenderness at all. He burned with embarrassment and no small measure of shame. He didn't want to see her eyes.

“Byakuya-sama,” she murmured suddenly, and he lifted his head to look at her. She was chewing her lip, nervous, anxious. Hesitantly, she leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss to his forehead. As though she had sensed his sudden embarrassment, sensed what he was feeling, sensed what he was thinking, she placed her hands on his face, bringing his head back to her shoulder and embracing him. “Don’t think,” she whispered, her warm breath pleasant in the euphoric afterglow as it brushed the shell of his ear. “Don’t wonder. It was wonderful, and that’s all it ever needs to be. Thank you for that.” She turned her face then and placed another chaste kiss, this time on his cheek. He wound his arms around her again, telling himself not to think. Trust his instincts. Believe in her words.

Believe in her.

And it was easier to do so than he could have imagined.


TBC

AN/ I bring you the first update from my shiny new computer. My old one appeared to have gone through some kind of mid-life crisis, naturally taking with it everything I had foolishly saved on it. That'll teach me to ever trust a machine. *grumble grumble*

Thanks again for the amazingly encouraging reviews. You guys really do rock, to an amazing degree. I hope my next update will be more timely, as a token of my appreciation for you all. Until then, HAPPY THOUGHTS! ^^