Kaoru tasted of salt, and felt like silk. Kenshin couldn’t get enough, pressing kisses along her collarbone, his breathing still labored, his body still overheated. He mouthed at her skin, any of her that he could reach without moving, relaxation thrumming through him. He let his eyes drift closed. Her hands were feather light on his back as he rested against her. She stroked along old scars, ridges of skin raised in stark relief from the muscles there.
“Kenshin?” Her voice was quiet, like drops in a silent pool.
“So many.” Her fingers found a particularly large scar, the one that Saito had left. and she traced it several times.
“Mmm, this one is one of the lucky ones.”
“…That too,” he laid his hand over her heart, and delighted in the feel of it, the steady beat of her life under his palm.
Her fingers drifted to the wound that Jineh had made, that had barely and miraculously missed his liver, ghosting over it, again and again, and then traveled to the bite mark on his shoulder. Her heart rate rose, and Kenshin shifted so that he was able to see her face through his bangs. She was upset. He was awash in peaceful lethargy and his wife was distressed. He frowned.
“Kenshin-” her voice caught, and her fingers kept mapping that scar, with it’s terrible, twisted lines. He knew what it looked like, and it was anything but reassuring or pretty. “Kenshin, you could have- so many times, Kenshin you could have-”
“But this one did not,” he interrupted gently, and caught her wrist, pulling her away from old pain. He brought her hand to his mouth, kissing her callused fingers before laying them over his own heart. “This one is here, with you.”
Her eyes were shining in the dark.
“Kaoru, this is more than this one ever thought to have. To lie here with you.”
Kaoru licked her lips. “Then always come home after. No matter what happens, always come home.”
“To you,” he agreed, and leaned down to kiss her, her palm caught between them. “This one will always return to you.”