shunsuinbloom

The first course went fine. He didn't look at you. Spoke to the Cavallone representative with one-worded responses as he focused more on the red wine in his hand.

By the second course his eyes found yours from across the table as his nostrils flared ever so slightly while his gazed like a predator locking onto prey.

You held his gaze. Took a bite of your risotto, and looked away first on purpose because you knew it would infuriate him.

It did.

You felt the weight of his stare on the side of your face for the rest of the course. Heavy and unblinking. The Cavallone representative tried to engage him in conversation about territory lines and Xanxus answered without moving his eyes from you.

By dessert, his chair had scraped back.

"We're done here," he announced to the table.

"But the negotiation isn't--" the Cavallone man started.

"Done." People scattered as he started reaching for his holster, but you stayed seated, finishing your wine, pulse slamming in your ears.

The dining room emptied until it was just you and the sound of his footsteps coming around the long table.

He braced both hands on the arms of your chair and leaned down until your faces were inches apart.

"You think I don't know what you did?"

"I organized a nearly successful dinner. You're welcome."

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it." One hand left the chair arm and found your thigh under the table, gripping it through your dress hard enough to make your breath catch.

"You've been sitting across from me for two hours wearing something that's made me think of everyway to get all those pieces of trash out of this room."

"Sounds like a personal problem honestly." You shrugged.

"It's about to be your problem." He pulled your chair out from the table with you still in it, the legs shrieking against floors before kneeling between your legs, pushing your dress up your thighs and placing his mouth against your skin.

Your hand found his hair and gripped as his jaw dragged up your thigh.

"Every curve," he muttered into your skin. His fingers dug into your hips. "You sat there looking like this, smelling like this--"

"Like what?" You ran your fingers through his dark hair and felt his breath stutter.

"Like you belong to me and you wanted every person to know it."

"Did it work?"

He bit your inner thigh and you arched off the chair, but his hands caught your waist and pinned you to your seat as his mouth continue trailing upwards.

"Get upstairs. Now." he ordered.

"Make me." you said instinctually before instantly realizing that was the wrong thing to say to a man like him... or perhaps the right things depending on who you are.

He stood and hauled you up with him and your feet barely touched the floor before he had you against the dining room wall, one hand flat beside your head, the other gripping the back of your thigh and hitching it up against his hip.

His body pressed yours into the plaster before his mouth crushed yours. Your hands grabbed the front of his suit jacket, pulling him closer. His tongue found yours and you groaned into his mouth.

He broke the kiss and pressed his forehead against yours with open eyes bore into yours from an inch away.

"Upstairs," he order again.

"Then carry me, if you can." you taunted, testing your luck.

Heat ignited behind his eyes as he curved both hands under your thighs, and lifted your full weight with surprising ease as your legs and arms wrapped around him as he carried you up the villa stairs with his mouth on your throat the entire way.

The bedroom door was kicked open, kicked shut, and locked before he dropped you on the bed and looked down at you with unmistakable want.

"I waited two hours," he said. "Don't expect this to be quick."

TYL!Superbia Squalo

You were trapped in a moving vehicle with Squalo on a four-hour drive back to Varia headquarters, and had applied the pheromone spray at the last rest stop despite knowing that the AC was broken.

So when windows came down and hot summer air flooded the car, the breeze carried everything you were wearing straight towards the driver's seat.

For forty minutes he said nothing while he white-knuckled the steering wheel, silver hair whipping in the wind.

You watched the countryside blur past and pretended to be fascinated by olive groves while your heart tried to hammer through your ribs, before you lurched forward after he shifted the gears too hard.

"You changed something," he said bluntly.

"Hmm?"

"At the rest stop. You put something on. Don't play dumb."

"I freshened up, is that a crime?"

"FRESHENED--" The car drifted and he corrected hard. His hand left the wheel and raked through his hair making the car drifted again.

"Hey--Eyes on the road!" you yelled, gripping the grab handle above.

"Don't tell me where to look!" But his eyes were already on you. Dropping to your bare legs in the passenger seat, the sundress bunched at your thighs, the seatbelt cutting between your breasts.

The car drifted a third time and a horn blared from behind and he snapped back, cursing at them.

"I wouldn't have bothered with this pheromone spray if I knew you'd end up killing us both!" you screeched, both hands gripping the handle now.

"VOIII--We wouldn't die in traffic!"

His grip on the steering wheel flexed, released and flexed again as he kept intentional attention to the road.

The car was filled with silence for another 5 kilometers as the olive groves gave way to grassy hills as the sun began its decent down.

Throughout all of this the wind kept carrying your scent towards him in waves before he pulled off the highway without any signal or warning, driving down a narrow road flanked by stone walls until the car was hidden from the road.

He threw it into park with the engine still running.

"Get out."

You did, and so did he.

He came around the hood in four strides and his hands grabbed your waist and your back hit the passenger door as his face dropped into the curve of your neck and breathed you in.

"You knew," he said against your throat. "You knew the wind was blowing that shit directly into my face while you pretended nothing was happening."

"Was something happening?"

His mouth pressed against your pulse and your knees buckled with a gasp, though his thigh shoved itself between yours in time to keep you upright against the car.

Your hands found his hair and you twisted your fingers into it and pulled his head back to see his eyes were both furious and desperate as they looked at you.

"Then why did you wait forty minutes?"

"Because I was doing 145 on the A3 and I have some self-preservation even though you were trying to destroy it!" His hands slid down to your hips as his body pressed between your legs, catching your gasp with his mouth.

As expected, his kiss was not gentle, and his hands were everywhere. Grabbing your thighs, pulling your hips, sliding up your sides beneath your sundress.

"This dress. This stupid fucking dress. Do you know what it's been doing to me since this morning?"

"It's just a sundress."

"On you it's a weapon." His mouth found your collarbone and bit down, making your back arch into him as his hips jerked forward as a mix between a groan and a curse escaped him.

"Do you know how long I've wanted this?" he continued. "Since the day you walked into the Varia mansion and told Levi to go to hell and didn't flinch when even I yelled at you." His forehead against yours. Silver hair curtaining both your faces.

"My legs were shaking the entire time though." you confessed.

"They're shaking now too." His hand slid down your thigh to prove it. He kissed you again but slower this time, hand cupping the back of your neck.

"We still have three hours of driving ahead if us," you murmured against his lips.

"Forget the drive." He pulled away and opened the back door.

"Get in before I lose what's left of my mind."

You climbed in and he followed. The door slammed and the car rocked on its suspension while highway traffic streamed past none the wiser.

TYL!Belphegor

You were thirty thousand feet in the air and had six hours left to go.

The Varia jet was small for a private aircraft, two rows of leather seats facing each other with a narrow aisle and a cockpit door that stayed locked. Outside the windows there was nothing but black sky and the occasional blink of a wing light.

Belphegor sat across from you with his boots on the seat beside your thigh and his tiara reflecting the overhead reading lamp. He'd been bored since takeoff and someone (you) was going to suffer for it.

You had the mission dossier open in your lap, reading over the intel on the target, floor plans and extraction routes.

The pheromone spray had been applied in the bathroom in a moment of poor judgment.

Because you were going to spend six hours in a sealed metal tube with a man would and has killed people for fun, and you had voluntarily made yourself the most interesting thing in the cabin.

"Ushishi, you keep reading that over and over, I think you got the details down." he said.

"I'm just being thorough."

"You're stalling. The prince can tell." His boots shifted, boot toe nudging your thigh. "What are you nervous about?"

"I'm not nervous."

"Your breathing hitched when the cabin doors shut." He tilted his head, blond hair shifting across his hidden eyes. "Being trapped in a small space with me would make most people would be nervous."

"I'm not most people though." you stated plainly, flipping through the dossier.

"Ushishishi. No. You're not." He pulled his boots off the seat and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, chin in his hands. The distance between your faces halved.

"You're also not wearing whatever you're wearing by accident."

Your grip on the dossier tightened. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Recycled air." He tapped the vent above him. "Everything circulates. The prince has been breathing you in since the wheels left the ground and it keeps getting stronger because your pulse is elevating your skin temperature and the compound is volatilizing faster."

"You know a lot about pheromone chemistry for a prince."

"The prince is a genius. I know a lot about everything." He stood. The cabin was narrow enough that standing put him directly over you. He braced one hand on the headrest behind you and leaned down and inhaled near your jaw and his grin dissolved into something open and hungry.

"Six hours," he repeated, quieter now. "Of sitting across from you in a locked cabin while that smell gets into everything. My clothes. My hair--"

"Sit down and put your seatbelt on Bel."

"No."

You grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled. He came down into the seat beside you willingly, knees hitting the leather, and the dossier crumpled between you as he pulled it free and tossed it down the aisle without looking.

"We need tha--"

"The prince has it memorized. Target is on the thirty-second floor, extraction is the southeast stairwell, and the security rotation changes at 2 AM." His hand found your jaw and tilted your face toward him. "Now stop talking about the mission."

"What should I talk about instead?"

"Nothing." He swung one leg over yours and settled into your lap facing you, knees bracketing your hips, light enough to hover but close enough that every shift of the plane's movement pressed him against you.

His hands slid into your hair and gripped, making your head tip back as his mouth found the underside of your jaw.

"Five hours and thirteen minutes left," he murmured against your throat. His hips rocked forward and your hands flew to his waist and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. "The prince intends to use every single one."

"We have a mission briefing to finish."

"We already finished it, remember?" His teeth sunk into your next below your ear and you whimpered, biting your lip.

"Ushishishi." His mouth hovering over yours. "The prince knew you'd sound like that."

"You did not."

"Genius, remember?" He kissed you and grinned into it as your hands slid under his shirt and up the bare skin of his back. He shuddered against you and bit your lower lip.

The plane hit a pocket of turbulence that pressed him harder into you.

"Five hours," you breathed against his mouth.

"Five hours." He repeted, his eyes were just visible through the curtain of blond hair. Completely fixated on you. "You sealed yourself in a metal box with a prince who wants to devour you, I hope you've realized this."

"Better yet, I planned for this."

"Ushishishi, perhaps I've found my princess after all~" He grinned as his mouth dropped back to your neck.

TYL!Dino Cavallone

The restaurant was one of those 'if you know you know' the kind of place that didn't have a sign outside. You had to know the door, and Dino knew every door in Naples worth knowing, and this one led to a candlelit room with eight tables and a chef who came out personally to explain each course.

He made the reservation a week ago. Told you to wear something you felt beautiful in and sent a car for you just as you finished getting ready.

You applied the pheromone spray in the back seat. Throat. Chest. Inner wrists. The driver kept his eyes on the road and you kept your eyes on your trembling hands and by the time the car stopped you smelled like a woman with intentions.

Dino stood when you walked in, showing you old-fashioned courtesy that would have felt performative from anyone else. He was wearing a dark suit with no tie, and the top button undone.

"You look stunning." He said as he pulled your chair out, fingers grazing your shoulder.

"You clean up well yourself."

He hummed and sat across from you, pouring you a glass of wine from a bottle already breathing on the table, and smiled at you over the rim of his glass.

The appetizer arrived, something with burrata and figs and a drizzle of honey that he insisted you try first. You ate and talked. He told a story about Romario getting lost in Milan that made you laugh hard enough to cover your mouth.

Midway through the story, his words slowed.

He blinked. Picked up his wine, smelled it for a moment before shaking his head and set it down without drinking. His eyes moved from your face to your neck to your--he quickly looked back up, catching himself.

"S-Sorry... Where was I?"

"Romario and the taxi driver."

"Right. He..." Dino paused and inhaled. His hand found the edge of the table and gripped. "He took the wrong--I'm sorry, can I be honest with you right now?"

"Always dear."

"I have completely lost track of that story because something about you tonight is making it difficult to sit on this side of the table."

Your wine glass stopped halfway to your lips. "Something about me?"

"You smell..." He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them they were heated and stripped of their earlier charm. "Irresistible." he said plainly, although it was obvious he had something else in mind.

"It's a pheromone spray. I put it on in the car" you confessed, fingers fidgeting with the edge of a napkin. "Is it too strong? I can go wash it--" he cut you off.

"In the car." He laughed once as his hand left the table to raked through his hair. "You sat in my car and put on something designed to--And then walked in here and let me tell a story about Romario while I--"

"While you what?"

"While I've been staring at your neck for the last six minutes fighting the urge to put my lips on it."

A waiter approached but Dino held up a hand without looking away from you. "Apologies, we need a moment." he requested, as the waiter vanished.

Dino moved, walked around the table and crouched beside your chair so his face was level with yours. His hand rested on your knee beneath the tablecloth and brought his mouth was close to yours..

"I want to stay... I want to order the main course and has a civilized evening with his love, but..." His thumb moved on your knee, tracing circles that widened up your thigh. "Tell me you want to stay and we'll stay."

"What if I don't?"

His hand stilled on your thigh and he bit the inside of his cheek as he looked at you for moment before he stood and pulled your chair back, taking your hand. The two of you walked to the front where the head host stood with professional composure.

"The main course is on its way shortly, signore--"

"Serve it to your staff tonight. On me." Dino placed a fold of bills on the podium without counting. "The wine too, all of it. Our compliments to the chef."

He looked at the money. Looked at Dino. Looked at you and gave a knowing smile.

"Of course, signore. Buona serata [good evening]."

The car was already there waiting. He opened your door and you slid in, and he followed instead of walking to the other side. His hands cupped your face immediately after the door closed and kissed you deeply, giving into the urge he had been fighting back earlier.

Your hands grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer while his palms slid down your neck to your chest, groaning against your mouth as his other hand found your thigh and squeezed.

"Home," he said against your lips. Then louder, to the driver. "Home. Now."

"How far?" you breathed.

"Twenty minutes."

"That's a long time."

His mouth found your throat, teeth grazing your skin as his hand traveling from your thigh to the curve of your hip, pulling you half into his lap in the back seat. "Then I'll keep busy."

Back at the restaurant, the kitchen staff split a four-course meal among themselves with a bottle of wine that cost more than their monthly rent while the chef raised a glass to the empty table.

TYL!Byakuran

Byakuran sat cross-legged on the white couch in his private quarters at the Millefiore base, marshmallow bag in his lap, with the television playing an old re-run he wasn't really paying attention to.

You stood in the doorway and your courage almost failed. The pheromone spray felt like a cheap parlor trick in front of a man who seemed to know more than he cared to admit.

"You're hovering~" He didn't look away from the screen. "Come in or don't, but the doorway thing is very cute."

"I came to bring the recon summary."

"Mmm. Put it anywhere." He popped a marshmallow into his mouth and chewed for a moment before stopping. His eyes slid to you and sharpened with an intense flicker of focus.

"Actually, I want you to come sit with me."

You sighed and sat on the far end of the couch and he smiled at the distance finding it cute. "You smell different tonight." he stated, keeping his attention on you.

"A-Ah, must be my new lotion."

"Liar~♥︎" He said sweetly, setting the marshmallow bag aside and unfolded toward you on his hands and knees.

"Byakuran what are you--"

"Shh. I'm investigating." He reached you. One hand braced on the cushion behind your head, the other landing on your bare knee where your skirt had ridden up. He leaned in until his lips hovered below your ear, closed his eyes and breathed in slow.

"Pheromone compound," he murmured. "Synthetic musk. Italian, probably. Applied quite generously and recently at that." His eyes opened. "Applied for me, I take it?"

"What makes you think it's for you?"

"Because I've seen every version of how tonight plays out, and in all of them you end up exactly where you are right now." His hand slid up from your knee, trailing along the full curve of your thigh, fingers pressing into the flesh with slow, curious pressure. "I wanted to save us about twenty minutes of pretending this time around."

He pushed you back against the arm of the couch and settled over you. His weight was deceptive, all lean muscle pressing you down into the cushions, and his thigh slid between yours and your breath caught and his smile returned but hungier.

"Mmm. you like this. You like the way I'm looking at you right now."

"Looking at me how?"

"Like you're the most interesting thing in any reality I've ever touched." His mouth found your neck and his tongue traced the line of your pulse while hand mapped the curve of your hip and stomach. "And you are, every time, without exception ♥︎"

Your back arched when his teeth grazed your ear while his hands slid beneath your shirt. His palms were flat on your bare skin as his fingers spread across the plush of your waist with a slow, possessive grip that tightened when you pulled his hair harder.

"You're trembling," he whispered against your neck. "The spray isn't doing that to you though, just me."

"Y-Your ego is staggering." you stumbled out, making him laugh.

"Tell me I'm wrong." His mouth moved up to yours and kissed you deeply as his hand found the back of your neck and held you there while his other hand continued its slow exploration beneath your clothes, tracing every line, dip and curve.

He broke the kiss just far enough to speak against your lips. "I knew you were coming tonight. Before you decided, before you picked up that little bottle... I knew."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Lots of things about me don't make sense." His mouth trailed down your throat, following the scent trail with focused attention. "You'll get used to it. Or you won't. Either way I find it cute."

"Do you just find everything cute or something?"

The playfulness in his expression flickered to something genuine as his thumb traced your jaw.

"Not everything," he said quietly. "Not even close. Just you. For longer than you'd believe if I told you."

You pulled him back down by the open collar of his shirt and kissed him and felt him smile against your mouth and then felt the smile dissolve when your hands found bare skin beneath the fabric and your nails dragged down his back.

His composure cracked and a soft sound left him that was surprisingly unguarded as he pressed his face into your throat where the spray was strongest.

"The recon summary--" you breathed.

"Was never why you came here." His grin came back. Sharp and fond and devastating. "And we both know that."

TYL!Gamma

The pool table was his. Well, not officially. It belonged to the Giglio Nero estate and anyone could use the game room on the second floor. But everyone in the family knew that after 10 PM the room belonged to Gamma, who spent his late evenings running strategy drills against himself.

You asked him to teach you how to play last week and he looked at you for a long moment with those steady eyes before telling you to come by Thursday at ten.

It was Thursday at ten and you stood in the hallway outside the game room with the pheromone spray drying on your skin and the distinct awareness that you were about to enter a small room with a man you've been pinning after for months now.

The door was open and he stood at the far end of the table chalking a cue. He glanced up when the door creaked wider.

"You're on time."

"You said ten."

"Most people keep me waiting though." He held out a second cue. You took it. Your fingers brushed his and he held the contact a fraction too long before releasing. "You've never played?"

"Nope, not once."

"Then we'll start with stance." He moved behind you and the room somehow felt even smaller now. "Feet shoulder width. Lean forward. Plant your bridge hand flat."

You leaned over the table and the cue wobbled in your grip as his hand landed on your hip to adjust your angle and stayed.

"Flatten your back and drop your elbow." His voice came from directly above your right shoulder. Close enough to feel on your skin. His chest wasn't touching your back but the heat of it was there.

His hand on your hip tightened. Released. Tightened again.

"Your stance is still off," he said, but it sounded like he was talking about something else.

"Show me then."

He stepped in, flush against your back as his arm came alongside yours and his hand covered your bridge hand on the felt and his chin hovered beside your temple. You felt him inhale once through his nose and then stop breathing entirely.

Three seconds of absolute stillness.

"Hit the cue ball," he said. His voice had dropped into a register that made your fingers want to curl against the felt.

You struck. Missed everything. The cue ball rolled pathetically into the side cushion.

"Again." He hadn't moved. His hand left yours and settled on your stomach, adjusting your posture, palm flat against the curve of it. His fingers spread. His thumb traced a slow arc beneath your ribs.

"Gamma, that's not helping my aim."

"Your aim isn't what I'm thinking about right now." His mouth was beside your ear. "What are you wearing?"

"I... might have accidentally put on a pheromone spray instead of my normal one." you winced, waiting for a lecture that never came.

"And you wore it here. Tonight. To a private lesson..."

"...Yup, sounds about right." you could feel the heat of embarrassment warm up your face.

Before you could create distance, his hand pressed harder against your stomach, drawing you back against his chest. You felt his mouth find the junction of your neck and shoulder as his lips parted.

"I was going to teach you to play," he said against your skin. His other hand came down on the table's edge beside yours, caging you between his arms. "I had a full lesson planed. Stance, grip, angles, follow-through."

"We can still do that."

"No." His forehead dropped to your shoulder. You felt his breathing fracture against your collarbone. "I have been trying to be professional around you for weeks. And you just undid all of it in ten minutes."

"Tell me you did it on purpose," he said into your shoulder. "Tell me you walked in here tonight wearing that for me and not because you actually wanted to learn pool."

"I did it on purpose."

"Good." He lifted his head. Took the cue from your hands and set it on the rack behind him without looking. When he turned back his hand caught your jaw and tilted your face up toward his . "Then we're done with the lesson." he said before kissing you.

Your hands fisted in his shirt while his hand found the back of your thigh and hitched it up against his hip as he pressed forward making the pool balls behind you scatter with a crack.

He pulled back, breathing hard and place his forehead against yours.

"I'm going to clear this table," he said.

"Of what? The balls?"

He looked at you and the corner of his mouth twitched. He swept his arm across the felt behind you and everything rolled and clattered and dropped into pockets and the green surface was empty.

Then his hands found your waist and lifted you onto it.

"That's better," he said, and stepped between your thighs and kissed you again.

Reborn (Adult Form)

He knew before you sat down, glancing up from his espresso as the corner of his mouth moved one millimeter. Which for Reborn, was the equivalent of any other man falling out of his chair.

"You're late," he took a sip from his cup.

"Two minutes."

"Late's late." His eyes tracked a couple walking past on the cobblestone street, purposely not looking at you. "Order something."

His gaze slid over to your wrists when you waved towards the waiter and ordered a cappuccino. Ah, so that's where you applied... He choose not to mention it yet, which was worse than confrontation as it meant he was in this for the long game.

Your cappuccino arrived and you drank in silence as the afternoon sun fell across the small table between you, making his fedora cast a shadow over his eyes.

He finally broke the silence, "How's your drink?"

"Fine." you mumbled from behind your mug as you people-watched.

"You seem tense."

"Not in the slightest, what gave you that idea?"

"Your pulse is visible in your throat." He still wasn't looking at you. He raised a finger to signal the waiter for another espresso. "It's been elevated since you sat down. Which means either you're afraid of me, which we both know you aren't, or you're waiting for me to react to something you did before you arrived."

Silence.

"I'm not going to react," he said. "Not here at least."

Your stomach tightened. "And... why not?"

"Because we're in public. Because I have a reputation. And because whatever you're wearing is designed to weaken impulse control and I refuse to give you the satisfaction." His second espresso arrived. He wrapped his fingers around the cup without drinking. "I will, however, tell you what's going to happen next."

"Go on." You looked at him from the corner of your eye.

"We're going to finish our coffee, I'm going to pay and we'll take a walk three blocks north to the hotel I'm staying at..." He paused, took a sip and set the cup down. "Then I'll let my impulses slip."

Your cappuccino nearly felt from your grasp.

"You missed a spot, by the way." He finally looked at you. "Behind your left knee. I can tell because you crossed your legs to the right when you sat down... you were thinking about every step before you got here, weren't you?"

"You're insufferable."

"And observant." He stood and dropped a bill on the table before he offered you his hand. "Shall we?"

You walked three blocks in the Florentine sun with his hand on the small of your back while he pointed out architecture, mentioned a restaurant he liked and asked about your week and behaved with such control that by the time the hotel room door closed behind you, you were barely ready for the shift in tone.

He removed his fedora and turned to face you.

"Now," he said, voice stripped of any pleasantries. "Come here and let me work."

His hands caught you by the hips and spun you so your back pressed against his chest, as his mouth landed on the spot behind your ear. The sound you made made him exhale audibly against your skin like he was holding that breath the entire walk here.

"Let's see if I can find all the places you've applied that spray... Hm, here." His lips traced down to your neck while his hands slid forward across your stomach, pulling your body back into his, fingers pressing its give through the dress. "Here." His mouth moved lower towards your chest. "And here." His knee nudged into the back of your right knee and you buckled, although he caught you with ease and laughed quietly against your shoulder.

"Y-You knew about the spray whole time," you managed.

"I knew before you even sat down." He turned you to face him while he cupped your jaw and kissed you once before he pulled back. "The world's greatest hitman, remember? Nothing gets past me." His thumb stroked your cheekbone. "Especially not you."

He kissed you again and the restraint that had held strong finally broke.

Fon (Adult Form)

He invited you for tea three days ago with a handwritten note that was slipped beneath your door. Thursday evening, his residence, tea and meditation. You pressed the note flat against your chest and stood in your hallway with your heart hammering against your chest.

Thursday came and you sprayed the pheromone on your throat and wrists, dressed simply, and drove to his home before your nerves failed you.

He met you at the door with a soft smile. "Thank you for coming. Please," he moved to the side to permit you entry.

The tea room opened onto a garden that had a low table with two tea cups and a cast-iron pot already steaming. You knelt across from him and he poured your tea with steady hands before pouring himself a cup.

You both drank and enjoyed the tea as you both discussed one another's lives, forgoing unsavory details regarding work.

By the second cup, his pour began to waver with a tiny tremor in the stream. He corrected it instantly, but his eyes lifted to yours and lingered one beat longer than required.

"Shall we meditate?" he said uncharacteristically sudden, fully aware pouring a third cup would reveal his personal affliction.

"Are you--I mean, sure. Yes. Lets!" you agreed, setting your concern aside, momentarily forgetting the spray.

He moved the tea equipment to the side and gestured to the cushion beside him rather than across from him and you shifted around the table and knelt at his side.

The reduced distance meant every breath you took now would waft the spray directly toward him.

"Close your eyes," he said. "And breathe from your center. Let everything quiet."

You closed your eyes, straightened your spine, and focused on your breath the way he taught you in previous sessions. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

The garden sounds filtered in: Cicadas, a distant fountain, the rustle of leaves.

His breathing beside you was measured and perfectly timed.

You did your best to match your rhythm to his and felt your shoulders drop and jaw unclench as the evening settled around you both like water.

Minutes passed. Five, maybe ten before his lips were pressed to the curve of your neck without warning. He was right where you applied spray most to, and the shock of it jolted through your entire body.

Your eyes flew open. "Fon--"

"Keep your eyes closed." His voice against your skin was barely above a whisper. "Please."

You closed them but your hands trembled in your lap while his mouth moved slowly up the side of your neck. His lips parted and you felt the heat of his breath and the faintest graze of his tongue tracing your pulse and your head tipped sideways to give him more room.

"I have been sitting here..." he murmured between your jaw and your ear, "attempting to meditate while your scent dismantled every technique I knew."

"You could have said something." you sighed out, trying to keep your voice contained.

"That's what I'm doing right now." His hand found your thigh and settled there. "With your permission, I would like to contin--."

"Yes."

His mouth opened against your throat while his hand slid from your thigh to your waist and pulled you toward him. His other hand caught the back of your neck and guided your forehead to rest against his.

"I have meditated in silence for many years," he said, his eyes open now. "And I have never once been distracted. You should understand what it means that tonight I could not manage even ten minutes."

"What does it mean?" you whispered.

He answered by kissing you with the kind of focus he brought to combat and pulled your body against his, making you gasp into the kiss while he swallowed the sound.

Your hands pressed flat against his chest and felt his heartbeat hammering in complete contradiction to every serene thing about him. He groaned quietly against your mouth as his arm locked around you and dragged you fully into his lap. Your weight settled onto him and his hips rolled up against yours.

"I thought this was tea and meditation," you breathed with a smile.

"The tea's gone cold," His mouth pressed against yours again while his hands mapped the full shape of your hips, stomach, and thighs. "And I am no longer meditating."

"What are you doing instead then?"

His teeth grazed the swell of your chest above your neckline and your back arched, fingers twisting into his braid pulled it loose making his dark hair spill across his shoulders.

"Worshipping," he said against your skin, and proved it until the lanterns burned out.

Colonnello (Adult Form)

The movie was his idea, he showed up at your apartment with a pack of beer and an action film he swore was a classic before planting himself on your couch like he owned the place. He was out of uniform for once, wearing only sweat pants and a tank top because apparently he didn't 'believe' in sleeves outside of active duty.

Twenty minutes into the movie you excused yourself to the bathroom.

You stared at the pheromone bottle on the shelf. You bought it a week ago as a joke and hadn't touched it since. But Colonnello was on your couch with his arm stretched across the back of it... and the space next to him was pretty much your size...

And frankly, the beer had made you just brave enough to try it out. One spritz. Two. Four. That shouldn't be too much... right?

You walked back out and sat beside him, closer than before, tilting yourself into him. He adjusted without comment, arm moving from the couch back onto your shoulders with ease.

The movie continued, and he laughed at an explosion before taking another drink.

By the time the movie hit its climax, his attention was too divided to react to anything happening on the scene.

He drank his beer more slowly, arm on your shoulder shifting. His fingers that rested against your upper arm, began tracing an absent circle on your skin. His head turned just slightly toward you, away, then back again.

"You change your shampoo or something, kora?"

"No?"

"Hm..."

The movie kept playing and his hand moved from your arm to the side of your neck, fingers ghosting up and down it. You could feel his breathing change against your side, deeper, like he was rationing air.

"Something's different," he said again. Quieter.

"Is it bothering you?"

"Bothering me." He repeated it flatly. His hand left your neck, found your chin and turned your face toward his. The television threw blue light across his features. "No. It's not bothering me. Bothering is the wrong word, kora."

"What's the right word?"

He didn't answer with words. He answered by sliding his hand from your chin to the back of your head and pulling your mouth to his.

The kiss was hard and tasted like cheap beer. Your hand landed on his chest and felt the slam of his heartbeat and realized he'd been sitting there quietly losing his mind quietly for the past hour while pretending to watch explosions on screen.

He broke the kiss long enough to haul you into his lap. Your full weight settled onto him and he pulled you down with both hands spread across your back and groaned into your mouth like the pressure of your body was exactly what he'd been craving.

"You did this on purpose," he muttered between kisses. His mouth moved to your jaw. "Sat next to me smelling all sweet like this, waiting for me to break."

"How long did it take?"

"Too long, kora." His hands found the hem of your shirt. Slid beneath it. Palms flat against your bare skin of your stomach. He pulled back took in the sight of you in his lap with narrowed eyes. "I've been trying to keep my hands off you for weeks. Whatever you have on--It's killed the last of my self-control..."

"Good. Your self-control was getting on my nerves."

He laughed then flipped you onto your back on the couch and settled over you while the movie continued playing on behind him, forgotten. His mouth found your neck where he breathed you in between open-mouthed kisses that made your fingers dig into his shoulders.

"Weeks--" he said again against your throat. His hands slid up your sides beneath your shirt, feeling the curves he pretended he didn't stare at every time you walked through a room. "Every time you handed me reports. Every time you bent over that strategy table..." he suppressed a groan. "Weeks, kora."

"You could have said something."

"I'm a soldier. We maintain our position until the mission parameters change." His teeth grazed your neck while is hands tightened on your body, pulling you up against him. "And they have."

"--With a pheromone spray I panic-applied in my bathroom."

"While I sat out here like an idiot watching a movie I've seen six times." He lifted his head and you could see his grin. His was flushed, bright-eyed, wrecked but so happy with it you couldn't help but grin back. "I heard you counting, by the way. Didn't know why, but makes sense now. These walls are thin."

"You did not."

"Kora, I can hear a safety click from two hundred meters. You think I can't hear you muttering in there?" He kissed you again, slower this time while his hand cradled the back of your head and his body covered yours completely.

He pulled back and looked down at you with a serious expression

"I don't do relationships halfway," he said. "You need to know that. If this is happening, this is happening. I'm not a casual guy, kora."

"I know."

"Good." His thumb traced your lower lip. "Then stop looking at me like you think I'm going to change my mind."

The beer went flat on the coffee table. The credits rolled without audience. The screen went dark and the room went dark with it and somewhere in the quiet his voice found your ear.

"Best movie night ever, kora."

You agreed, even though either of you had seen a single frame past the 60 minute mark.

Skull (Adult Form)

He almost cancelled.

You knew because he texted you six times in the hour before showing up.

First that he was on his way. Then that traffic was bad. Then that maybe tonight wasn't great actually. Then that no, he was coming, sorry. Then a typo. Then a correction of the typo.

Skull de Mort, the Immortal Stuntman, Cloud Arcobaleno, was nervous about dinner at your apartment.

You took advantage of the extra time to prepare. You cooked pasta, opened some wine, changed into your dress and... stood in your bedroom holding a bottle pheromone spray like it was a grenade. Taking a deep breath in, you misted it down your chest before shoving the bottle back into your dresser.

The doorbell rang at 8:23PM. He was over 20 minutes late, which you were thankful for.

You opened the door and he stood there holding flowers. Grocery store flowers, still in the plastic with a price sticker, because while he didn't do things elegantly he did do them earnestly and that was always the thing about him that you loved most.

"These are for you! The nice ones were sold out. These are fine though, the lady said they last a week. I don't know if that's--"

"They're perfect Skull." You took the flowers from him and stepped aside, "Come on in."

His face flustered as he walked in adjusting sleeves he wasn't used to wearing.

He was wearing a button-down shirt, not his usual leather and purple and he looked so nervous your chest almost ached for him.

You put the flowers in water and poured two glasses of wine, handing him one. He took a sip and choked slightly and you watched the blush climb further up his neck while he tried to play it off.

"T-The pasta smells amazing!" he said, for once trying to get your attention off of him for a moment.

"Thank you."

"And you look--you're--I mean the dress is--" He gestured vaguely at your entire body with his wine glass and nearly spilled it. "Really, um."

"Really what?"

"Really making it hard to... remember how talking works."

You smiled and stepped closer, watching as his gaze dropped to the neckline of your dress... and you swear you saw his eyes nearly glaze over.

His wine glass landed on the counter with a clumsy thud, his mouth opened to apologize but then closed as his free hand reached toward you before stopping midair.

"Can I--is it okay if I--"

You took his hovering hand and placed it on your waist and he exhaled in relief.

Then his fingers curled into you and he stepped forward and dropped his face into the curve of your neck and he breathed you in as a sound between a whimper and a growl left his throat.

"What is that," he said into your neck, his voice dropping into a register you never heard from him.

"Just um... you know... pheromone spray."

"And you put it on... for tonight?"

"For you actually."

His teeth found your neck and he bit down, making your spine arch and the wine glass wobble on the counter as your hand fisted in the back of his button-down and pulled it untucked.

"I had a whole plan," he said, mouth moving down to the swell of your chest above the dress. "Dinner. Conversation. Be charming. Don't knock anything over. Don't screw it up." His hands slid down and gripped the thick of your thighs through the dress and lifted you onto the kitchen counter and stepped between your legs and looked up at you. His pupils were blown so wide there was almost no color left. "You destroyed my plan." he pouted.

"You were going to knock something over anyway."

He laughed then kissed you deeply, swiping his tongue against your lips. You let out a soft sigh and locked your legs around him while your hands slid up his chest to undo the first button his shirt, making him shudder against you.

"I'm not good at this," he breathed against your mouth. "I'm not smooth--Honestly I'm probably going to say something stupid and ruin the moment--"

"Then stop talking and keep kissing me."

He did and moved his lips down your jaw, across your throat and above your chest while his hands explored you with growing confidence, pulling you tighter against him every time you made a sound.

The pasta boiled over on the stove. He reached behind you and turned the burner off without lifting his mouth from your skin.

"Ngh, s-sorry, should we stop for dinner?" he murmured.

"Later."

"Thank god." He said all too quickly and grinned against your throat, pulling you closer.

a/n. Listen I love KHR, so when a friend ( @potator-tati ) asks for a KHR request, I take it and RUN--hence why this my longest piece yet. Hope you enjoyed~