#oboyara

L'yara leaned forward, using her hand on Oboro's cheek to pull him in until their lips met. The first kiss was timid and brief; both of them testing the waters, a mere press of lips against each other. The angle was wrong, and L'yara lifted herself up to better match his height as she slid in closer, planting her knees on either side of where his calves folded beneath his thighs.

Their lips met again, the better angle allowing for a surer, but still gentle, kiss. Oboro's hands came to rest on L'yara's hips, but she could feel the hesitation in his movements. She rubbed soft lines across his cheek with her thumb, encouraging him, as his lips began to move against hers. She matched his movements gladly, lifting her free hand from the water to wrap around the side of his neck, gently pulling him closer, deeper into the kiss. Oboro exhaled a soft moan against her lips, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her tight against his chest, and L'yara chuckled into the kiss. 

"Sorry," Oboro huffed, pulling back just far enough to rest his forehead against L'yara's. His fingertips dug into her sides, insistent but not painful. "I have wanted this for... so long."

"There’s no need to be sorry," L'yara assured, “for I have as well.” Her thumb caressed his cheek once more, her eyes meeting his gentle gaze. “My life may pull me in many different directions, but if I were to have one wish, it would be that fate always pulls me back to you.” Oboro let out a disbelieving huff of laughter, his hands roaming up L’yara’s back.

“It seems almost ludicrous now,” he murmured, “to have wasted years worrying about the potential hardships which romantic entanglement might bring… only to realize the moment I have you in my arms, that I would brave them all gladly if it meant I could have this with you whensoever I wished.”

L’yara laughed, and Oboro’s smiling lips met her own again. Her arms snaked around his shoulders, one hand combing through the hair at the nape of his neck, encouraging him as he pressed closer. L’yara teasingly licked at his lips, and Oboro chased her tongue with his own, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. L'yara hummed in approval as she gently sucked at his tongue, causing Oboro to moan into her mouth once more. The tip of her tongue swirled around his and then she sucked at it again, a mischievous curl to her lips as she continued to tease him. To her surprise, Oboro retaliated by leveraging his arms around her waist to pull her down onto his lap, sending waves crashing through the water around them. The kiss broke with matching gasps from them both, the thin fabric of their bathing clothes doing little to hide the evidence of how she affected him. 

“I hadn’t intended to get you so riled up,” L’yara teased, settling into his lap and squeezing her legs against his hips for good measure. She pressed a quick kiss to his lips, pulling back with a smirk when he tried to capture her lips once more.

“How could you not?” he asked, pressing forward to chase down another kiss. “I told you earlier, it has not been easy for me to resist your temptations.” 

L’yara leaned back as far as she could with his arms still around her waist, disengaging her own arms from around his neck. Slowly, deliberately, she ran her fingertips over his shoulders, down his chest, her eyes following their movements until she reached his waist, then flicking back up to meet his hungry gaze with her own.

“Then it’s about time you stopped resisting.”

With a deftness that shouldn't have surprised her, Oboro spun them around and bent her back, laying her out across the ledge she'd been seated on earlier. He'd braced one arm across her back and the other hand at the back of her head to prevent her hitting the stone too harshly, and slowly withdrew them to set her down gently. Her legs fell to the sides beneath the rippling waters, giving him plenty of room to press in closer. Leaning his weight on his forearms, now braced against the stone to either side of L'yara's head, and with L'yara's arms wrapping around his neck to pull him in, Oboro captured her lips in another, more heated kiss.

Clawed fingertips scratched at Oboro's back as mouths moved together harshly, tongues entangling, pants of breath escaping their lips wherever they could. There was no more testing, no more teasing - nothing but the tension built up from years of want. L'yara wrapped her legs around Oboro's waist, urging him in closer, moaning into the kiss at the feeling of him against her. Oboro echoed her with a groan, the noise muffled by the urgency with which their lips sought each other out.

A clatter of movement and the sound of voices moderately nearby startled the pair apart; it seemed there were other late-night visitors to the hot springs getting undressed in the changing room at the entrance. L'yara and Oboro righted themselves before any witnesses could come around the corner, casting each other embarrassed glances and shy smiles that didn't match their dilated pupils, flushed cheeks, and swollen lips. They'd been so caught up in each other, they'd both forgotten they were still in public. Given her past experiences with the Sekiseigumi, L'yara doubted they looked kindly upon public indecency.

They exchanged polite yet impersonal nods with their fellow patrons, who thankfully sat a polite and impersonal distance from them, in a spring a few tiers below. As casually as she could manage, L'yara said, "It's getting late. Perhaps we should retire to the inn?" She waggled her eyebrows at him, hoping to make her intentions clear after their years of miscommunication.