Simple Like Tea

Reiko is mine.

WARNING: If adults having consentual heterosexual sex offends you, please don't read this chapter.


Chapter 8 - Letting Her Hair Down



When Renji approached the tea house, he saw the light was already on inside. He smiled to himself. Reiko was waiting. He quickened his steps and smiled wider when she turned in her seat to watch him approach. It was all he could to keep himself from running the rest of the way when she smiled and her entire face lit up.

“Tadaima,” he greeted her as he slid the door open and stepped inside.

“Okaeri, Renji-kun,” she said happily, standing up now and smiling brightly. Renji’s heart began to race when he saw that smile. He fought the familiar blush, but knew it was no use. She was so pretty when she smiled like that. “How was your day?”

“Tiring,” he sighed as he dropped himself into the chair opposite her and let her pour him a cup of tea. “And boring. Since the death of Aizen, everything has been so quiet, it’s a miracle if anyone above a fourth or fifth seat has to even fight anymore.”

“You fight,” Reiko said quietly, and he heard an emotion he couldn’t quite place in her voice.

In the time they spent together, he had run out of the teahouse four times to fight a hollow, once to fight a low-level arrancar. He had always asked her to stay inside when he had to do this, and she always did, but when he would return, she would be sitting stiff at the table with a cup of cold tea wrapped in both hands, as though she had turned to stone while he was gone. Always when he found her like this, he would place a hand on her shoulder, and she would slump in her chair as though exhausted. “Thank you for coming back,” she would say, and her voice would be seeped with relief.

“I fight because it’s my job.” He didn’t know why but it felt like he was defending himself.

“But work isn’t everything,” she said quietly, and he looked at her. She was looking into her cup as though unable to meet his gaze. He noticed a slight blush dusting her cheeks and felt satisfaction at the realization that he wasn’t the only one that always seemed to blush.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said confidently, and she looked up at him, her blush deepening. “It’ll take an army to bring me down. I’m the great Abarai Renji, vice-captain of the sixth squad, super cool legend.”

She giggled at him, and his dopey grin grew dopier and wider. “Of course. Silly me. How could I forget?” She sipped at her cup and a strand of her hair fell down the side of her neck from behind her ear. He looked at it and suddenly his throat felt very dry. It looked so soft, so inviting, just dangling there. He wanted to touch it, he realized, and his stomach did a flip as he imagined doing just that.

He had never seen her with her hair down, not really. The first few nights, when he had thrown rocks at her window to get her to open the door for him, she had always opened her window to greet him with her hair down. From the street, with her looking down at him, he hadn’t been able to guess its length or its texture. But her buns had been getting messier and messier since then, and when strands fell free like this, he found himself reacting very strongly to it.

“Reiko-san,” he said suddenly, and she seemed to almost jump at the seriousness of his tone.

“Nani?”

Renji looked away and blinked. “Why don’t you let me see you with your hair down?”

She set her cup down on the table and folded her hands in her lap, lowering her head as though in embarrassment. “My hair is very short,” she said quietly. “It isn’t befitting of a respectable young woman.”

Renji looked at her then, but she studied her hands as though she found them infinitely interesting. “Befitting?” he repeated in disbelief.

She flinched as though he had slapped her. “My o-jii-san used to say that a woman’s hair was her crown. Without her hair, she isn’t really a woman.”

Renji fidgeted. Whenever Reiko spoke of her o-jii-san, he found himself wondering if she adored the man or loathed him. He himself was having trouble thinking kindly of him. Once or twice he had considered looking for him in soul society just to teach him a thing or two. Whatever he had done when he was alive, Reiko was all but damaged because of it, and to hell if she did love him.

“That’s so stupid!” he let his distaste colour his words and Reiko looked startled at his sudden shout. “When I look at you, I see a smart, independent young woman, accomplished and beautiful. You are all woman to me, hair or no hair. Anyone who thinks any less of you must be a complete idiot.”

Reiko blushed fiercely and the heat in Renji’s face told him he was a matching shade of scarlet. His brain told him to shut up before he made a bigger fool of himself than he already had, but his mouth was too far gone to stop now.

“I’m not just saying things to flatter you, Reiko-san. I’ve been thinking about you for the last few days. I can’t get the image of you out of my mind, even when I sleep.”

“Renji-kun…” she raised her eyes to look at him, and her expression was full of wonder. “You think I’m beautiful?”

He stood from his chair and took a step towards her. She looked at him questioningly, her eyes wide and dark and full of… was it hope? He was almost certain that was hope in her eyes. Her blush crept down her neck and disappeared beneath the folds of her yukata. He momentarily wondered how far down the blush went and broke in a sweat at the mental images that fluttered through his mind in response to the unspoken question. “I think you are very beautiful. I think you are one of the most beautiful women I have ever met.”

The hope in her eyes was replaced with joy, and then determination. She stood up, nearly bumping into him and placed her hands on his shoulders. Renji’s heart raced at the contact, and the world slowed to a standstill when she reached on her tiptoes and pulled his head down towards her, her eyes fluttering closed, her lashes making long shadows against her cheeks.

Renji hesitantly wrapped his arms around her waist and closed the distance, bringing his lips softly over hers in a way both unfamiliar and strangely nostalgic. It had been a long time since he had kissed a girl.

But now he was kissing Reiko, and she tasted of mint, cool against his hot lips, making his fingers tremble slightly in excitement.

The thought slowly sunk in and he gripped the material of her yukata tight, pressing his lips to hers more firmly, causing her to sigh into his mouth. Her warm breath sent shivers down his spine, and he cautiously ran the tip of his tongue along her lower lip. She sighed again, her hands sliding down from his shoulders, her fingers spread across his chest warm through the fabric of his clothes.

I'm really kissing Reiko.

He pulled back momentarily, not releasing his grip on her and looked at her face. She was flushed, he saw, and more of her hair had tumbled around her face. Her eyes were watery now, and heavy-lidded, as though she had just woken up. Her lips were moist, glistening softly in the dim light of the lamp, and he wanted to kiss her again.

She tugged at his clothes and pulled him down again, as though reading his mind, kissed him feverishly as though the contact was all that kept her alive. He kissed her back, his heart beating so loudly he was certain she could hear it, if not feel it through his chest.

This time, she broke the kiss, pulling back and looking at his face searchingly, almost as though trying to memorize his features. “Renji-kun, please come upstairs with me.” Her voice was steady even though her face had turned an alarmingly deep red and her eyes watered with the effort of not looking away. Not trusting his own voice to be so steady, Renji nodded, and Reiko linked her fingers in his. Unhurriedly she lead him to the back of the shop, up the stairs and behind the door to the little room she hadn’t allowed anyone to enter since the last time she had been with a man.

Now that he was here, she felt uncertain again. Had she been too forward? “I’ll make some tea,” she said almost automatically, moving to the sink and picking up a small bowl of dried mint leaves.

When she felt the arms encircle her from behind, she gasped and fumbled with the cup she was holding. She was tense and very aware of the warmth of the body pressing into her back. His arms trailed down her own until they took the little cup from her hands and placed it gently on the counter, then the little bowl of mint was set carefully next to it before he was taking her hand and putting it to his cheek. She couldn’t see his face, but his cheek was warm under her palm, and she could feel his rapidly beating heart against her back.

He released her hand but she left it on his cheek as he let his own run over her shoulders, pausing when they met the place where the skin of her neck ended and her yukata started. He put his hands on her back and gently reached to grip her waist. She heard him inhale deeply and sigh, as though the smell pleased him. Her own heart was racing in her ears now, and she felt herself melt into the embrace. His touch soothed away a sharp and painful loneliness she had been battling for years.

Slowly, so agonizingly slowly, he turned her in his arms so she was facing him, and when she saw his face, she saw in it a hunger she had seen so briefly before she had convinced herself it was imagined. There was lust, too, but the lust sat in the back of his eyes, cowered and small compared to that hunger. His face was steeled resolve as he leant forward and brushed his lips against hers. Reiko sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He seemed surprised at first by her readiness to return the kiss, but then he was gripping the fabric of her yukata and pulling her closer, as though in desperate need for more. His tongue slid gently along her lips, a sharp contrast to his steel grip, and she parted them to let him enter her mouth. Inside, he explored every inch of her with his tongue, one of his hands moving up to tangle in her hair, tugging impatiently at her bun until it tumbled down her back.

He stopped kissing her to move back and look at her, flushed and with her hair down for the first time, her lips wet and teased pink, slightly parted as she panted up at him, her hunger mirroring his own. “Reiko…” without the honorific, her name felt intimate on his tongue.

“Please,” she whispered suddenly, pushing him back but gripping the front of his shirt close, “please.” She suddenly held his hand and led him across the small apartment and behind the screens. There, she turned to face him, her face a deep red again but full of determination.

An old fashioned moral battle raged inside him. He wanted to, there was no question of even pretending to pretend he didn’t, but was it the right thing to do? Would it be fair to her? But then she launched herself at him, arms tight around his neck, mouth locked over his, tongue strong and sure in his mouth, dominating him easily. He groaned a small protest, but the sound was muffled in their kiss, and he relented, running his fingers through her hair again. It was so soft.

Stepping back abruptly, she untied her obi and tossed it aside. She knelt down and removed her socks, then paused, her hands waiting on the front of her yukata. Meeting his gaze, she dropped the fabric slowly and it pooled around her feet, and Renji felt his heart speed up distantly. All he could be aware of was the beauty standing in front of him. She stood in a white bra and white cotton panties so sensible, it was difficult not to find them sexy. Her skin was pale and smooth, unmarred except for a relatively large tattoo on her right arm that was at odds with the rest of her, but unobtrusively so. Her neck looked impossibly long and slender with her smallish breasts leading down to a narrow waist and flaring out in wide hips. Her legs looked smooth and creamy, and he wondered what it would feel like to touch them.

She was still looking at him with a determined gaze when he looked back up at her face, but during his inspection of her body she had blushed an even deeper shade of crimson. He saw the blotched skin tinge with red down her neck and disappear somewhere in her bra. He smiled. He couldn’t help himself.

Starting to work himself free of his own clothes, he started by letting his own hair down. When it was free he worked the buttons of his shirt free and pulled it over his head halfway through. He bent over and slipped his own socks off, then undid his belt. He gripped his pants in place and looked embarrassed for a moment. “I’m not wearing any underwear,” he muttered almost too quietly for Reiko to hear, and she smiled. Reaching behind her she unclasped her bra and dropped it. Renji looked at her, stunned, her nipples pink and hard, as though ready for him. He realized his jaw was hanging open and he shut it so quickly, his ears rang for a moment.

Reiko had her thumbs hooked into her underwear. “On the count of three,” she said, and her flush trickled down between her breasts all the way to her navel. Renji nodded mutely. “One, two, three…”

They both unclothed in a rush and stood looking at one another. The distance between them was not great, a gap that could be closed within two steps, but she suddenly felt as though he were an ocean away. His entire body was well-formed planes of tattooed muscle, his arms and shoulders corded flesh that she found befitting of his strong neck and powerful jaw. His chest and arms were a web of scars, each one a testimony to justh ow dangerous his work was. His member was half stiff, and she realized with shock that red was his natural hair colour. When her eyes settled there he made a small movement like he wanted to hide himself from her gaze, but he didn’t. He let her take in the sight of him unclothed, and the sight made her belly pool with warmth that she hadn’t felt in years.

When Renji let his eyes wander down her wide hips to the triangle of black curls between her thighs, his breath hitched and he worried he might choke. The sight of her standing there in the moonlight, with her hair down and her skin blotchy and flushed and her entire body quivering so minutely he wouldn’t have noticed it if he wasn’t looking so closely, unclothed and breathing heavily, the sight of her made his heart hammer so loudly in his chest, he was certain by now that she could hear it. He swallowed, but the look on her face was stark fear and uncertainty.

“I-” it came out as a squeak and she clamped her jaw shut and cleared her throat. He must think her very foolish right now. She felt a right idiot. He wasn’t attracted to her. He couldn’t be attracted to her. Like some kind of lust-blinded fool she had asked him to… she blushed again and looked away. “I understand if you’ve changed your mind.”

Renji’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. Did she think he didn’t want her? Standing naked less than three feet away from her perfect unblemished body, completely unclothed and wearing that expression of shy expectation that no man would ever be able to wear and look sexy, every part of her, from the swell of her breasts to the tantalizing curves of her limbs more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen, with a bed right there in the room, taking up so much space it was impossible not to think about it, she thought he didn’t want her? He was still a man, no matter what kind of job he had. No one but Kuchiki Byakuya would be able to reign in his lust in this kind of situation, and even he wouldn’t be able to manage with a straight face.

He opened his mouth to reassure her that he hadn’t changed his mind, but she wasn’t looking at him and she suddenly moved her arms to cover herself, blushing furiously, quivering more than ever. He didn’t realize he had moved until he had her gathered in his arms, kissing everything he could reach, her face and her lips and her hair and her neck. Oh well, he usually ended up saying the wrong thing whenever he talked anyway. He didn’t need words right now. He kissed her cheeks again and again and tasted saltwater. “Please, don’t cry,” he reacted by tightening his grip on her and holding her closer.

Reiko inhaled the scent of him. He smelled like herbal soap and freshly cut wood. She had been on the verge of tears when she had thought he didn’t want her, and when he had suddenly taken her in his arms, they turned into tears of relief. But now with the heat of his body so close to hers, with no clothes and no barriers, the warmth of his muscled form touching every inch of her it could touch, what she had first felt in her belly was becoming a raging torrent that needed attention immediately. She tilted her head back to look at Renji and he swallowed audibly.

She had no idea how sexy she looked like that, her face red and her eyes showing naked desire. The last of Renji’s self control burst into flame and before she could blink twice he had tumbled her into bed and was kissing her senseless. His hands were large and callused, but warm and startlingly gentle as he hesitantly roamed them down her neck. When he cupped her breasts she gasped into his mouth, tilting her head back and sighed as he tantalizingly ran a thumb over one of her nipples. He nipped a way down the side of her neck and she squirmed in a way that made Renji instantly harden. Everywhere he touched her, she was so so soft. The taste of her skin, slightly salty with sweat but overwhelmingly minty, as though the stuff came out of her very pores, was maddening. Without warning he brought his head down and traced lazy circles with his tongue around her left nipple. She moaned softly and he thought he might explode right there and then.

She arched her back when he did it again, her neck curved and her hair fanned across the pillows, offering herself up to him. He took the nipple into his mouth and alternated between gentle bites and firm sucks. Reiko bit her fingers. She would go insane. Nothing like this, nothing she had ever imagined had been like this, she had never believed it would be anything like this. Renji released her left nipple and she whimpered in protest before he latched onto the right one. She hiccupped in surprise and bit her fingers harder. If she stopped biting, she would start screaming, and maybe she wouldn’t be able to stop screaming once she started...

Renji heard her hiccup and suppressed a groan. Without even touching him, she made him hard enough that the throbbing had turned to aching. Kissing a path up her neck, he stopped at the junction of her jaw and inhaled her. She still smelled like mint, but there was another far more primal scent filling his nostrils now. He knew instinctively it was her scent, a scent unique and utterly animalistic that nothing and no one could replicate. He was so enthralled by it, he nearly swallowed his tongue in surprise when her slender fingers suddenly encircled his erection.

Reiko would have blushed any other time at being so forward as to actually grab a man’s fully hardened penis, but this wasn’t any other time. The strangled moan he released into her hair was rewarding in its own right, and she was encouraged into carefully pumping his length a few times. She experimentally squeezed him and he began to buck into her hand, clearly unaware of what his body was doing, in motions so very enticing. It had been a very long time since she’d been with a man…

The way her hand felt around him drove all thoughts of sense and logic from his mind. He hissed through his teeth as her thumb slipped over the tip, spreading the precum that had gathered there across the head. Moans were building up in his throat, but he bit them back. His jaw began to ache because of how tightly he clenched it shut, and still he groaned, almost a single continuous sound that grew louder and more ragged as she sped up her ministrations.

In the back of her mind, Reiko was alarmed. He was biting into her shoulder now, his ragged breath hot against her skin, his moans getting louder, but even that didn’t distract her from the size of the cock in her hand. It had looked large when it was half-stiff, but now she had it in her hand, she was very aware of just how large it really was. It had been a very long time. Fear and uncertainty began to loom in her mind, and the pleasure that had clouded her thoughts began to recede. It was going to hurt. What did she think she was doing? She needed to-

When Renji fumbled his fingers over her clit she gasped and arched her back. Her hand on his length tightened momentarily, and the shock drove him to bite down on her shoulder again. He moved his finger down and gathered the moisture that had started dripping out of her entrance before moving his fingers back to rub them around her clit again. She cried out suddenly, a loud uninhibited sound that was as animalistic as her scent had been. The fingers of her free hand clutched at his back, his hair, dug into his shoulders and left shallow scratch marks as she moaned louder, arching her body closer to him, grinding against his finger in erratic thrusts that were at least mostly unconscious. “Renji!”

The sound of his name had never sounded so good. When she began to lead him to her entrance, he moved his fingers out of the way almost reluctantly. Was she a virgin? He was alarmed that he didn’t know. If she was a virgin, he didn’t want to hurt her. And besides, he wasn’t the kind of guy most girls lost their virginities to, especially not girls like Reiko.

“Reiko,” he deliberately lifted himself on his arms to look her in the face. The sight of her was almost enough for him to plunge into her regardless of what his brain said, but he clenched his fist in her soft hair and reminded himself that the rest of her was just as soft. “Reiko, are you…? Have you…?”

Renji blushed and Reiko felt her heart melt. Is this wasn't the sweetest thing... “It’s not my first time, Renji,” she breathed, smiling at the relieved look he was trying unsuccessfully to hide. “I’m ready.” She reached her neck up to capture his lips with hers and pushed herself against him. He began to slide into her then, slowly, carefully, as though she were made of glass, gasping into her mouth. Herself, she moaned, her head falling back onto the pillow and her eyes rolling into the back of her head as she was filled inch by inch where she had been empty for so long.

Halfway in, he stopped himself. Being inside her, even halfway as he was then, was the most incredible feeling. Every muscle inside her quivered and trembled, stretching and clenching as though to adjust itself around his intrusion. He released the fistful of hair he had held so tight and began to smooth her hair away from her face. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured before he even realized it.

Her eyes fluttered open – she couldn’t remember closing them – and she smiled. She reached up and moved some of his hair away from his face, brushing his cheek with the back of her hand. Her heart sped up and she felt lightheaded. He was beautiful, too, but she couldn’t tell him that. It would just embarrass him. “Are you ok?” his voice was huskier, deeper than she’d ever heard it before, but the concern was clear.

Unable to trust her voice, she nodded mutely. Every muscle quivering with restraint, he slowly pushed into her the rest of the way. Her eyes widened with surprise, then she was gasping and panting, her body alternating between pushing up into him and squirming away. He reached a hand down and clutched her hip to keep her steady, because if she continued moving that way he would lose all control. Biting his lip, he closed his eyes, releasing a pathetic noise that sounded suspiciously like a whimper even to his own ears when he finally sheathed himself fully inside her. When he heard a whimper he knew not to be his own, he opened his eyes and studied Reiko’s face.

Her eyes were closed again and she was also biting her lip. Her face was twisted into an expression somewhere between pain and pleasure, and alarm swept through his entire body. He didn't want to hurt her! He started to pull out of her before her legs tangled behind his back and her own little hands gripped his waist firmly. “Please, wait…”

Renji tightened his grip on her waist and felt sweat begin to gather at his forehead. The muscles gripping him were fluttering, pulsing all around him, slick and wet, and it was a struggle keeping still. She lifted her hips a little to adjust herself and a low growl escaped his throat. “Reiko,” he gasped as she moved again. “I can’t…”

The grip he had on her waist was bruising, and as he began to slide out of her she moaned before she could clamp her teeth down on the sound. Earlier when he had stopped halfway through to tell her she was beautiful, she had thought that he had already inserted himself fully. It had been a shock when he had continued and she had felt the realization of her prediction. It had hurt, being filled by someone so large after ignoring her pleasure organs for so long. But it had also felt mind-numbingly good. She had been too scared to let him move the first time, but as he rasped out to her how he couldn’t wait any longer and began to move inside her, the pain receded and the mind-numbing pleasure began to build into mind-blowing pleasure.

Renji nuzzled her neck, inhaling her scent, mint and musk and sex rolled into the most delicious thing he had ever smelled in his life and tried to maintain his pace. She had started moaning quickly when he started moving, but he wasn’t about to forget the pain he had glimpsed on her face. She began to move with him, matching his rhythm stroke for stroke, then picking up speed so that he had to adjust his pace to match hers. He slid his hand down from her waist to cup her ass and lifted his head to watch her face. Her moans and her hitched breathing were showing the telltale signs of an impending orgasm, and he wanted more than anything to see her face when she came.

Every time their bodies met, Reiko felt fire shoot through her limbs to the tips of her fingers and toes. Her legs began to shake as the jolts of fire grew hotter and hotter, and her arms began to feel numb. Throwing her arms around his neck, she screamed when the fire suddenly burst into an inferno and every muscle in her body clenched with the effort of extreme pleasure.

Renji felt her claw at his shoulders as she rode out the waves of her orgasm, watched her face transform from the soft-featured Reiko he had become accustomed to into a wild, expressive mask of sheer pleasure. Her inner muscles squeezed him as though trying to milk him, and he quivered with the effort of withholding his orgasm. Just a little longer, just long enough to see her face…

As her entire body shuddered and went limp in his arms, he quickened his pace slightly and tumbled over the edge of a blissful oblivion, burying his face in her hair to cry out at the sudden intensity of his orgasm. He gripped her closer to him, let the hot wetness of her wash over him, let the fluttering muscles inside her drain him until he all but collapsed on top of her, panting and too worn out to even lift his head. He felt her hands stroking his hair, felt her soft kisses along the side of his neck and down his shoulder and smiled to himself, wrapping his arms around her waist and rolling off of her to the side so he could hold her without crushing her.

She was smiling, too, he saw, a smile more genuine than he had ever seen her smile before, and still running her hands through his hair. He reached up a hand to cup her chin and kissed her softly, tenderly, lingeringly before almost reluctantly pulling away. Her eyes were cloudy with pleasure, exhaustion and something else he couldn’t identify, but that he was certain he had never seen there before. Letting her snuggle into his chest while he pulled the sheets over them both, he found that the sheets, too, were musky with the smell of her. Within minutes, her slow, deep breathing told him she had fallen asleep in his arms. He looked down at her and pet her hair, frowning to himself when he found a strand of white hidden underneath her glossy black locks.

So young, too young to have white hair already. Too alone, too. He wondered how long she had been living in this little apartment, with her routine and her tea and not much else besides the shrine where her grandfather constantly watched her. Feeling suddenly protective, he wrapped his arms tighter around her small form, brushing some hair away from her face and thinking himself very very stupid.

He was falling in love with a human girl.

He still loved Rukia, the kind of love he harbored for her was not the kind to disappear within two or three weeks, but while that love was ever so slowly fading out of his heart, a new love was growing in the places it left free. He was a fool. Hadn’t falling in love once taught him not to be so careless with his own heart? Hadn’t it been painful enough the first time around? Why was his foolish heart so eager to love again, and why so soon? He knew he should leave now, leave and never come back, never try to see her again. He knew he couldn't.

“I’m really an idiot,” he murmured under his breath, even as his mind tried to justify staying just a while longer, just until she was in a deep enough sleep that she wouldn't notice him leave. Smiling sadly to himself, Renji kissed her on the forehead, and tried not to squeeze her to death when she sighed happily in her sleep.




TBC


AN/ Well, it was bound to happen some time, but mark my words, this isn't over yet! Renji and Reiko may have done the nasty, but Byakuya hasn't come into the picture yet. It took me a lot of time and effort to manage this chapter, because I didn't want the sex to be lewd. I try to be tasteful when I write most anything, and this especially was hard. Since it's my first fan-fic, you can probably guess it's also my first time writing a sex xcene. I did try, though, and I welcome criticism in all constructive forms.

Thanks again for the reviews, guys (gotten tired of hearing that yet?) and tune in next week! Byakuya makes his first move. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN!