積ん読

He shivers at the sensation of it, silence roaring in his ears, blood pushed by his heart squeezing once, twice, a tension in his body that sounds like a storm—

You shift beside him, and the sensation snaps everything back to quiet, back to the sound of the sheets and the simple whirr of the overhead fan as he noses at your throat, feeling your pulse still in some slow, sleep-heavy range.

All is well. All is at peace.

And he should be asleep. He certainly had expended enough energy with you and Shiba earlier—though, perhaps you had extended some good amount more, given how you hadn’t even waited for him to get you back into proper clothes after cleaning up, keener still on rolling over onto his arm, the covers wrapped up tight about you, obscuring your bare skin still pressed against his.

At the time, he couldn’t tell, but with his restless mind at play now, he wonders if you might have been pouting—or at least…desperate. Frightened. Needy in a way that he understood, at least in part.

Shiba had left without lingering long in your bedroom, and regardless of whether or not he would be coming back tonight to sleep, or staying out on a pretense of larger issues running in the back of his mind. He had known Shiba for longer than you, and he recognized the way the man used distance as an easy thing to hide his guilt or nerves or outright fear behind.

You were bright. You spotted things easily, too. You likely knew the pattern. The knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less.

Perhaps you had believed that with this, with you all having given in and acted on precisely the attraction you had been dancing around, perhaps you had believed that he might have been willing to be as brave as you had been. Or at least—been willing to try.

But alas. Shiba is weak. It was a weakness he understood, even as his own weaknesses took different shape in the aftermath of this.

They would have to have a talk. Then all of you would have to have a talk. But that would be a problem for tomorrow.

Tonight, Soshiro is awake, sleepless, and fighting that awful itch in his soul. Unless Shiba walks through your bedroom door right this minute, he isn’t at the core of the problem. He had always been free to wander, he wasn’t at risk here.

The problem stems from you.

Shiba could be outside smoking (just under the eaves, just in the bounds of the protective wards, just like you had always asked him to), he could be miles away checking on Chihiro, it doesn’t matter because right now you are here, in Soshiro’s arms, sleeping peacefully, and you are safe and his and warm and cared for and it still isn’t enough. It isn’t enough for him.

There is an itch in his soul.

Because he is still not close enough to you for him to feel soothed.

He had a taste. One taste of you, and that was all it took for him to turn into this, this restless animal clawing for relief, but unable to move.

He’s touching you, your back is pressed to his chest, curling to his belly. Your hips are pressed flush against his, his legs coiled around yours, and it’s not his body’s reactions to you that are making him antsy, it’s more, it’s worse.

He wants to climb out of his skin. He wants to cut open a gash in his chest, so that he might curl close, nestle you next to his heart and sew himself back up to keep you close, keep you safe, keep you away from hands that would prise you from him, from the people who loved you. Maybe that would soothe the need. Stop the way his body tenses, trying to make that itch stop.

He feels like a taut spring that might break at any second now.

Closer. He needs to be closer.

He needs to feel so bound up in you that you might never untangle.

His body flashes to an answer before his mind follows suit, his hips rutting slowly, gently against yours, his cock, previously just twitching uselessly, pinned between you both, instead slipped between your thighs, the squeeze just…he shivers, and not from that itch in his soul.

He thrusts languidly, once, twice, a third time before the head of his cock rubs over your clit—poor sensitive thing—and he hears you whine.

Frozen—he finds himself trapped somewhere between the more human part of him demanding he stop, shame stinging like thistle, and the animal demanding he press close again, soothe you back to sleep, keep you from running. But you shift and that comforting instinct wins out, nosing comfortingly at your throat.

“Soshiro?” Your sleep-laced voice is almost like a whine, leaving that animal in his ribcage salivating.

He doesn’t know what to say.

He waits, as though you might fall asleep again, even when you move, just slightly in his arms, like you’re trying to roll around to face him—which is met with a collection of silent protests as he holds you tighter, pins you in place against him, squeezing your thighs around him, letting you feel the solid proof of what he was doing, and a brief idea of for how long, given the sticky feeling of his precum smeared on your thighs.

He tries to soothe you, in spite of the steel of his grasp, his lips finding your pulse again, again, and at that, it seems, you relax.

The fox in the jaws of the baying hound.

“You need more?” Yes. Yes he does but not in the way you’re thinking—not in the way of orgasm and making you scream for him—not in a way he finds words to explain in time. “’s okay,” you breathe, and he is absolved. Did you think guilt had choked him before the weight of his own want stole the words from his lungs? It doesn’t matter. You press your head deeper into the pillows, exposing more of your throat to him, the arm coiled around you met by one of yours curling up to take his hand, press him closer. “You can have me. Whatever you need.”

Whatever he needs. Oh, sweetest heart, you have no idea what you’re promising.

“I’ll take care of you,” he murmurs, and he’s surprised by how rough his voice sounds—not like that thought lasts, though, amid his free hand, not clasping your own, dips down, motioning for you to lift your leg. You do, propping it up just barely, giving him the room he needs to maneuver.

He doesn’t know how wet you are, or how prepared you are for him. So he resolves to go slowly.

It helps, he thinks, that both you and him are tired. There isn’t any hurry or rush, his body relaxed from the tension of trying to not wake you with his needs. So he goes slow, pausing when he feels you tense and wince from the stretch. He presses kisses to your throat and shoulder, pausing, once, twice to sink his teeth in, relishing the give of your soft skin. You would relax, and he would press further. A little more give every time, as you relax around him easier and easier.

And when he is fully seated inside you, it’s barely a moment before you lower your leg, making you feel all the more snug around him.

He knows you can feel it too—your breath hitches adorably, and you shift your hips just barely, back and forth, back and forth, savoring the feeling.

He lets you, even, for a time. Before he has enough, his arms clamping around you, pressing you so close to him you hardly feel like you could breathe, let alone move.

And you still. Trapped in his jaws, waiting for teeth to sink in further…

…Or not at all.

Because in that stillness with you, he feels satisfaction. Contentment.

Relief.

The simple animal of his soul has been silenced, and he could finally sigh, relaxing.

You on the other hand, whine, trying to squirm, to move—and not even from a want to escape. A want for satisfaction, he realizes, feeling the way you try to arch, to get him to grind against that sensitive spot he knows how to find and will not seek out now.

Oh, you poor thing. You’ve got yourself all excited haven’t you?

“Shhhh sh sh sh.” His hand on your throat rubs soothing circles over your pulse, the beat just barely fast enough to fight off sleep, though he doubted it would stay that way for long. “It’s okay. It’s okay. Just be good for me now. I have what I need.”

He doesn’t need anything more than this.

You whimper. You squirm. But despite your attempts to resist it, the heat and comfort sink in, and your body relaxes.

His does, too, as that thrumming sensation in his blood dies down.

He noses at your throat, releasing even his light grip to ensure you sleep comfortably, but your hand stays clutching his, even as he can tell you’re slipping back to sleep.

As though you need reassurance, too, that he’s not going anywhere.

He winds himself around you, feeling you holding onto him in turn. Skin on skin, the ivy coiling the oak.

When you drift off, he finds he can breathe again. Boneless exhaustion finds him, finally, amid the satisfaction of joining like this with you.