#ssm22

He won't lie how the thought of her with another person once he got home has plagued his mind to an extreme. It made him feel restless, anxious, and a pang of jealousy made him want to throw up until he can't help it anymore, Sasuke turns his back to start his way back home to Sakura.

When he finally stepped a foot in Konoha, his heart did a somersault inside the confines of his ribs at the sight of her; reading peacefully while eating her favorite dango, she was sitting on the bench where he had left her once upon a lifetime ago. He remembered his panicked state while thinking if she intended to sit there to wait for him or someone else.

He remembered clearly as an afternoon sky how his breath sucked out of him when she lifted her head and she caught his mismatched ones with her sea-foam green orbs. 

He remembered how her face broke in a wide smile and how time seemed to stop around them at that exact moment.

He remembered thinking how his life is finally complete once again as he had found a home to come home to.

One thing is for sure the moment they find themselves standing face to face with each other. They are in a trance of love. Love that has been pulling them to each other since they were genin, love that has never gone away even for a moment.

Even when he was consumed by darkness, she was there, guiding him with her light and warmth but he was blinded by something that was not her. He was blinded by a lie that he never needed her.

As he succumbed in the dark path her light never wavered, he knows, he always knows that she's waiting for him and he also knows how he's never good enough to have someone like her loves him. He's never good enough to be with her.

But she is Haruno Sakura, she is a spring but also hard headed, she won't stop loving him just because he says so. She won't stop giving him light and hope until they are weakened and old.

That's how she is, that's how she always has been.

And Sasuke couldn't stop his heart from soaring in unexplainable happiness.

-

Setting his worn scroll down, Sasuke begins packing his belongings into a storing scroll. Hastily placing them back on his hip pouch that Sakura gifted to him. The heavy rain wouldn't stop for a few days, he cannot wait any longer, he needs to see the light of his life.

Leaping onto the myriad of trees, he didn't stop running to the direction of his home. It's a good thing that he's close to the Fire Country's borders on his way to Rivers Country. He'll be home soon after a day of running.

He didn't stop until he reached the village's gates, except for a few rests where he would help himself with soldier pills. 

The rain is still pouring down madly, he is drenched, his clothes and cloak are making a pool of water on the threshold of her apartment and he contemplates knocking on Sakura's door in this state. Sasuke knows how overly caring she could be, it's just in her nature. Besides, he doesn't even know if she's here. Maybe she was in the hospital as she practically lives there.

The key to her apartment feels heavy on his pocket. Memories of her giving it to him flooded his mind, it was a sweet gesture. With that simple act she has proven yet again that he is welcomed in her life and that he has a home. A home with her.

Holding the key, he's about to insert it in the keyhole when it abruptly opens, revealing a frowning Sakura.

"I thought you'd never knock" she pouts, a blush creeps on her pretty features and he could not fight the smile that is slowly tugging on his lips.

"Aa"

"Oh my god! Sasuke-kun you're soaked!" she ushers him inside her little abode. Toeing his sandals off his feet as she helps him take off his cloak, vest and shirt. Her sweet and clean smell wafts in his nose partnered with her gentle touches while she dab a pink towel on his torso. He watches her face painted with worry, she's nibbling on her soft lips and the sight shoots a hot and warm feeling on his stomach.

They have been intimate with each other countless of times but that has only been limited to kissing and light touches. As embarrassing as it sounds, he'd admit that he had touched himself while he was away with the images of her flushed skin and swollen lips in his mind. When they started being intimate he couldn't stop thinking about her in that light and it awakened something deep within him: a wanton desire. Now that he is at peace, living his life, these kinds of nasty thoughts lingers inside him, especially if he misses his betrothed dearly.

He reaches a hand on her cheek, cradling her small face on his palm. He strokes her round cheek with his thumb, eliciting a hum from her pretty little mouth. Sasuke runs his thumb on Sakura's plump lower lip that he knew the taste of very well.

"Sasuke-kun," she whispers, sounding breathless all of a sudden. It sends a whirlwind of desire to his groin. He bends down and captures her lips with his, after 6 months he can taste the lips that have been plaguing his dreams and imaginations again. He tenderly cups her slender neck with his lone hand, feeling her pulse beat rapidly as their kiss becomes searing and hungry. His tongue darts inside her warm mouth, tasting and exploring every facet of her.

Her hands travel slowly up his torso and she wraps her arms around his neck. Making her flush on his bare chest. His hand moves on every inch of her skin that he can touch. Leaving him wanting to feel more of her soft skin. He tugs on her shirt and they break their kiss briefly, Sakura takes off her shirt and he is greeted with her exposed breasts, his mouth has gone dry at the thought of her forgoing the need of bra before opening her door for him.

His sharingan flares unconsciously, taking the sight to behold in front of him, that is his future wife. Making this very image forever implanted on his mind, carefully tucked with his snapshots of Sakura that keeps on growing.

Their mouths find each other again. Her pert nipples are pressing on his bare chest, he gingerly cups one of her mounds with his hand. And the act has sent endless goose pimples on his skin. Sakura moans quietly in his lips and Sasuke wants to hear more of it. He abandons her lips and starts journeying his way down her slender neck. Planting butterfly kisses as he runs his knuckles on her toned stomach.

Sasuke wants more. He starts walking with her in his arm until the back of her knees bumps on her couch and it makes her plop on the soft cushion. He continues kissing her neck, nipping, and licking the soft skin in the junction of her jaw and throat. Making sure to leave his masterpiece on his canvas that is her neck.

Her hands made its way on his swelling erection and a strangled moan elicited its way from his throat. "Sakura" he managed to choke out when he felt her small hand grips his clothed manhood. When she doesn't stop on gripping and rubbing him he snatches her wrist. "Wait".

Heat covers his whole face, he's sure he is as red as tomato right now. Sakura's the same though, her swollen lips and flushed cheeks makes his member twitch. And he doesn't know that making her cheeks even redder is possible. She's too damn adorable.

Sasuke leans down to kiss her again whilst his hand travels on the string of her cotton shorts, slipping his hand inside. The tips of his fingers ghostly touch her clothed heat and her hips promptly jerks upwards, making his fingers rubs along her slit.

"Please," she whimpers, and the way she begged sends shivers crawling on his spine. His digits sinks slowly on her still clothed womanhood and as if she doesn't want to lose in pleasuring your partner competition, Sakura starts rubbing him hard. Sasuke thrusts his hips on her hand, quickly forgetting his own ministrations on her pussy. His mind is clouded in desire and he needs nothing but to feel her all around him.

His head dips on her breast, sucking and swirling his tongue on her pert nipples. Her moans become loud in every swirl and rub of his fingers. Her appetizing hips jerks wildly. He retracts his hand and quickly rips off her shorts along with her underwear.

Admiring the wetness and pinkness of her folds with his sharingan, Sasuke gulps and he sinks his head between her legs. A quiet gasp can be heard from Sakura and she quickly closes her legs but he just gently parts them again with his thumb drawing lazy circles on her inner thigh, an attempt to calm her down. Dipping his head again, her scent wafts on his nose, making his erection harder in the confines of his boxers. It's getting painful at this point, he needs a release.

He experimentally licks the small bud on her sex. Sasuke never had an experience sexually except that he had read one of Kakashi's nasty book, so he doesn't have any idea if what was he doing is even correct. But based on his love's reaction, he thinks he's doing a pretty good job.

Sasuke starts lapping on her wet folds, inserting his tongue inside her opening. He has to place his palm on her stomach to keep her from thrashing even more. He tastes every bits of her sex, licking from the bottom of her slit to her little bud of nerves, and he will then proceeds on sucking her clit.

Her own hand moved down to her pussy and he had to watch what she'll do. And he swore that erotic stunt had sent him into oblivion. Sakura, the light of his life, his spring, is pleasuring herself infront of him. His member twitches again and Sasuke stands to pull down his pants, his cock sprang into life, the tip rests comfortably on his belly. Pre-cum has already finds its way out. He wraps his hand around his cock and starts pumping and pleasuring himself while watching his love intently.

Their wanton cries echo loudly in her living room, he's sure her neighbors would hear if she hadn't placed a silencing seal.

He can feel his stomach coiling to prepare for its release, and he lifts Sakura up so that she's sitting with her legs parted wide. Sakura pulls him down to kiss him and he feels her tiny hand wrap around his member and she guides him to her entrance.

Sasuke pulls away from the kiss and looks deeply in her sea-foam green eyes, asking if she's sure, asking if she's ready.

Sakura nods her head and Sasuke sinks himself inside her, the feeling of her heated walls wrapping around his length perfectly makes his jaw slacken. "F-fuck" he couldn't stop himself from cursing out loud.

She feels so good, a hundred times better than his fantasy.

He starts thrusting his hips deeper until he is completely inside her. Her walls tightens around him and he groans, his stomach is already hurting from the much needed release. "Sasuke-kun…" she moans and upon hearing that sweet melody in his ears, Sasuke starts propelling his hips faster. Ignoring the tightness of her walls he's sure it hurts.

When he finally feels that she's all stretched out for his length, he rams his hips in and out of her, hitting a good spot deep inside his love. Sakura is now a hot mess under him and the thought of he's the reason why she's like this makes him move even faster.

Sasuke falls limply on Sakura, pulling himself out as he positions their bodies more comfortably on the couch. They are now lying together, Sakura's head resting on his chest listening to his erratic heartbeats while he runs his hand on the dip curve of her back.

The slapping of skin to skin is loud in their ears. He grips her hips tightly, keeping her in place. He felt her pussy tightens and her hips meets his every thrust, a few more hard thrust he feels her explode around him. He didn't stop after that, Sasuke lifted her hips and started ramming her again. His belly uncoils the heat searing in him and his cock twitch, emptying himself inside her, shooting his seeds deeply.

After cleaning themselves with her pink towels,

A comfortable silence envelopes them, her soft and even breathing lulls him to sleep. Before he could even pass out from blissfulness, Sasuke speaks.

"Come with me tomorrow, Sakura" his voice is hoarse. He feels her lift her head from his chest to look at him.

"Where?"

"Anywhere" his hand is still caressing her back while waiting for her response.

"I'll go wherever you are, Sasuke-kun! I'll be by your side forever" she whispers, her voice is soft as always and it always calms him.

"Aa, you are." he replies, planting a kiss on top of her head.

Tomorrow, their new journey together will start.

Sakura blinks and pauses in her ministrations, angling her upper body more towards him momentarily.

“Of course not,” she says softly with eyes that are doting and an expression that is intenerate, fluttering strawberry blonde lashes sweeping her cheeks. Her irises are near olive in this light.

His brow furrows as he tries to place where he knows this particular expression from, stupidly distracted for a second by how alluring Sakura is to him even when she’s something as mundane as folding clothing. 

Then she’s blushing. 

“Can’t a wife do something nice for her husband?” She asks with cheeks as red and ripe as strawberries, turning back to the laundry. 

Blinking again, Sasuke takes stock of the set of her shoulders, hunched marginally inward, as well as the careful angling of her face away from him. 

He comes to the conclusion in that moment that it is the body language she displays when she has an ulterior motive of some kind. Not a lie, as they have no secrets between the two of them; just not quite a complete truth.

His gaze flits briefly to the space beneath the door of the bathroom that’s attached to their bedroom. No light emanates from beneath the wood.

Something like excitement, exceedingly masculine in nature, slowly begins to unfurl in his chest and sink into his pelvis.

“It’s summer,” he drawls, turning his mismatched eyes back on her and mentally preparing himself for a figurative game of cat and mouse.

“So?” She questions, betraying nothing in the slightest as she folds a sock into its counterpart.

He takes a few steps towards her, strategically making use of the mirror in the far corner to search her face, still turned slightly away from him. There’s nothing to read, really, except the rosaceous flush. Sakura is a capable Shinobi, so the expression she uses when she’s not being entirely honest is well-honed. 

If he couldn’t fluster her into blushing the way he can, she would have almost had him fooled.

“A little hot for a bath,” he says casually, breathing in the scent of cleanliness and training a knuckle at the crest of her spine before he begins trailing down. "Don't you think?"

To Sakura’s credit, she is not only a decent liar, but also stubborn when she sets her mind to something. 

“Showers are hot, too,” she responds pedantically, blank-faced as the motions of her folding continue uninterrupted, though there is something in her voice to his experienced ear that sounds just the slightest bit controlled. She stashes several now paired socks into their corresponding drawer on the far side of the dresser, briefly escaping his orbit ahead of returning to it just as easily of her own accord. 

He trails the curve of his finger between her shoulder blades now, grazing the touch carefully all the way down to the small of her back, knocking his way gently down each vertebrae. Thoracic spine melts into lumbar, and he feels the edges of some kind of garment that make his toes curl in anticipation.

Sakura just keeps folding, though there’s a tiny crease on the corner of her lip where she’s biting it, as if she’s trying to keep herself from smiling now, and her cheeks are still red, somewhat freckled from sun exposure during her trip to wherever she disappeared to today.

“Hm,” he intones, curving his knuckles gently over the swell of her rear before he rotates his hand to swipe a thumb over it instead. The touch begins as a light one, but quickly devolves as he cops an entirely unashamed feel. 

It's as he expected; she’s wearing a pair of panties that offers almost no fabric towards covering her cheeks below the loose fitting pants she’s currently clothed in.

Sasuke abandons his ministrations promptly to wordlessly help her finish folding the laundry, having to fight to keep the lazy grin off his face when she levels him with a facial expression that screams you’re a tease.

Her pupils are blown wide now, he notes with satisfaction. More shirts are folded, followed by pairs of pants and underthings. Sakura is unusually quiet tonight, he finds; typically she chatters away when they share chores.

The vast majority of her undergarments are present in the basket, he sees as they work, lacy fineries clinging to shirts and pants via static electricity, though he supposes it doesn’t necessarily have to mean what he thinks it means: that perhaps she is wearing something new.

When she turns to deposit the pile she’s folded in the drawer closest to them, he makes his move, lightly grabbing her arm. 

“Tsuma,” he murmurs in her ear as he closes the gap between their bodies. Normally he’d use her name, but she’s weaker to this particular term of endearment, and his blood is beginning to run particularly hot, like he’s on the cusp of something devastatingly appetizing.

His wife rewards him with the reaction he’d intended; a shudder, a shiver at his breath, his lips, centimeters away. Skin flushed further, cheeks and neck and further down, he knows. He watches her swallow with rapt attention, considering very salacious things, such as the sweet wet heat of her mouth and how the texture of her lips feels wrapped around him and a red lipstick aptly named Wild Cherry that she saves for special occasions, of which he hasn’t seen in awhile.

He and Sakura regularly enjoy the physicality of their union, now that he's home more regularly - nearly every night, in fact, inclusive of the evening previous - but he has the sneaking suspicion that tonight, something is especially, deliciously awry.

“...What’s in the bath?” Sasuke whispers huskily, lips grazing a freckle atop her ear lobe.

There is a very long pause. 

“Water,” she says in a completely unaffected voice as she reaches to shut the drawer, pulling free of his range with a half smile.

“Water,” he echoes, eye twitching and mouth sinking into a frown.

Her smile grows, the miniscule lines of her lips expanding with the motion, much like they do when she- 

“Yup.”

Sasuke raises his eyebrow incredulously and gives her an expression of his own that drips with a silently mirrored message.

You’re a tease. 

“...Sarada’s on a mission,” he deadpans. “It’s the middle of summer. And you drew me a bath.” He casts a purposeful glance to the closed bathroom door. “The lights aren’t even on.”

“Sure did,” she confirms, cheeky and the green of her eyes dancing as she picks up the hamper and sidesteps him, presumably to return it to the laundry closet after well over an hour, when he knows she’s capable of folding everything that was in it in seven minutes flat. “Aren’t I sweet?”

“You are,” he capitalizes without a second of hesitation, smirking and giving her a different look, one that’s as hungry as his hand is as he reaches for her again.

Sakura swats him away halfheartedly, pouting in mock offense even as she flushes further, and that is what seals it for him, really. Something is happening, though he’s not sure what.

“Who knew I married such a debauchee?” She grins, eyeing him as she turns, the set of her mouth a little self-congratulatory. “You’re incorrigible, Sasuke-kun.”

He snorts, genuinely amused, because she says it as if she isn’t a regular, active, wanton participant in their bedroom activities. Or their kitchen and living room activities, if Sarada isn’t home.

“You knew that well before we married.”

Sakura simply closes her eyes and resolutely proceeds towards the door, laundry basket in hand at the indent of her enticing hip.

“Enjoy your bath, Anata,” she says in a voice that sounds downright flirtatious prior to switching the lights off and exiting out the door, closing it behind her with a soft click. A girlish giggle resonates down the hallway.

Sasuke exhales deeply, gaze lingering on the door she's just left through.

Cozen vixen. 

He’d be lying if he said his mouth wasn’t watering a little bit. 

All in due time, he thinks, shrugging before he takes slow steps to the bathroom, something in him a hint delirious with anticipation. 

When he shoulders the door open, said anticipation takes staunch root and effloresces. 

He is faced with several things of note as he carefully closes the door behind him.

There is a bath drawn, as she said. Steam floats upward, so hot that the room is a bit encapsulated with it, slightly fogged window in the corner and mirror somewhat blurred in a heat intermixed with fragrances that are distinctly floral and calming. It’s lit with the tiniest smidgens of light from around a dozen candles: tealights, a few larger three-wick candles, and one that is apparently scented. One word flickers in and out of existence along the curvature of its label.

Ardent.

He identifies the scent of jasmine and rose as the ones currently invading his nostrils, small bits of the flowers encapsulated within the wax as it burns, perched at the corner of the tub. The bath itself is only three quarters full, water tinted peach in color - he suspects a bath oil is diluted in the mixture - and laden with a thin blanket of flower petals. Most of them are roses, though a few other flowers are intermixed, too; rich pinks and mauves and lavenders and whites, enough that they coat near the entire surface of the water. The candlelight catches their transparencies, an effervescence that glows through the thin membranes of each petal.

The stool in the other far corner that usually houses a lamp for reading is conspicuously empty, save a lone jar of massage oil. 

And there is a tube of lipstick allocated eloquently on the side of the sink counter where Sakura usually places her things, though it is not a familiar one. 

The intention is crystal clear: to paint him in a new color by way of her mouth, against a quilt of artfully draped petals and dim coruscant light and buoyant heat, though it appears she will take her time doing so.

Love and redamancy fills his being. Lust does, too, an ambrosial shiver quaking just behind his ribs and perhaps a little lower.

His wife is beautiful, inside and out. It’s apt that she was named after a flower.

Ardent, indeed.

Sasuke carefully peels off his clothing, piling each garment neatly behind the door so that they don’t inhibit the loveliness of what Sakura has created for them. He briefly considers clicking the cap off of the lipstick so he can peruse the color, maybe memorize the hue with his Sharingan prior to his demise. He could also simply read the shade name in an attempt to ascertain a hint of what’s in store for him this particular evening, he supposes.

Ultimately he decides against it. He wants to be surprised.

As he slips into the tub, he greatly enjoys the sensation of being submerged in something hand-picked and special. Steam and petals cling to his skin - this is a metaphor, he thinks, highly cognizant of the fact that Sakura has always had a poetic streak - as his toes push past a sea of the florid to settle on the other end of the bath. He reflects on the bouquets that adorn their kitchen table each time he returns from a mission with grand affection and gratitude, lone hand sifting through lavender and rose remnants.

And Sasuke waits.

She doesn’t leave him to his woolgathering for long. He hears Sakura’s footsteps before she’s even in their bedroom, straining for any sign of her as he anticipatorily sifts water over himself and drinks in the scent of being beloved. Her gait slows once he hears the door to their room click, and he knows she must cross their shared space to her side of the bed momentarily. 

An extensive pause - he pictures her shrugging off her clothing maddeningly slowly, folding it neatly on their bed as she usually does - and then there is a faint sound of the small drawer by their bedside table being opened, something being procured.

He’s twitching already. The bath is nice, but there's another heat he wants more.

Finally, finally, her awaited steps arrive at the door, and it clicks open.

She is divine, a vision of spring sent to absolutely wreck him.

It’s a new set as he expected, pale pink like her hair. It near matches the flowers floating in the water, actually; transparent floral in the center stitched in pinks, lavenders, and the tiniest hints of jade, almost exactly the same hue as her eyes. The sides are ruched, with pinprick-sized dots spanning the sides of the lingerie. It’s supremely feminine, lines of fabric trailing up the middle of the bustier and cupping her breasts before the material edges into meager straps. Four petite buttons divide the center, somewhat old-fashioned and ludicrously enticing. The panties match, the dotted fabric folded on each side to draw further attention to what lies in the middle. The floral patterning encompasses the bulk of the garment, enticingly transparent so that he can see the soft thatch of pink through the fabric at her center. The print is transparent at her chest, too, nipples barely covered at all. 

He’s half mast in seconds, blood pooling south at a breakneck pace as she closes the door behind her gently, immuring them in together. There’s something in her hand, a modest bottle of some kind; he thinks it may be some kind of lubricant. 

As his gaze trails hungrily back upwards over the way the set hugs her curves, lost in the way the delicate string of her underwear outlines the creamy skin of her upper thigh, she proceeds unhurriedly to the counter area by the sink, pirouetting so that her backside becomes the center of his attention.

It’s a clearly intentional and impeccable view. The string of the thong disappears, hardly visible between the cleft of flawless cheeks, perfectly rounded like the juiciest peach.

It’s when she bends slightly as she sets down the bottle in her hand, procuring the lipstick from the counter instead, that he barely succeeds in smothering a groan low in his throat.

The fabric runs precisely between her lips, caught enticingly tightly and already saturated with her. It’s nearly exactly the same shade as her sex, a veil that does absolutely nothing in terms of decency, just begging to be pulled to the side and-

The lid of the lipstick pops off, and he tears his eyes away from her folds to discover that the color is a faded pink, pale and glossy when the candle light catches it. She swipes her hand over the mirror to defog it, then leans closer to apply the color agonizingly slowly, at an angle he knows she is aware he can plainly view her face from in the now cleared mirror.

His cock twitches in his lap, fully hard now and poking up emphatically from beneath the surface of the water, insistently pushing petals out of the way. Sakura fastidiously outlines her top lip as he watches, enthralled, then the bottom, smudging both together when she’s done to more evenly distribute the color.

Her gaze finds his in the mirror, chartreuse with cast flame, just after he’s stolen another longing look at the tempting apex between her thighs. 

Sakura smiles. 

“Enjoying your bath, Sasuke-kun?” She lowers from her tiptoes, undoing the arch of her back - tease - and pops the cap back on the lipstick before returning it to the counter.

“...It’s nice,” he says. His voice sounds hoarse even to his own ears.

Sakura giggles, spinning to face him. He lets his vision glissade upwards from her center to her breasts, tardy to her eyes in order to convey his full, ripe appreciation for this treat.

“Just nice?” His wife presses seductively, shiny pink quirking upwards. And oh, how he wants that color on every inch of him, evidence of her endearment soaking him in her entirely. 

“More than nice,” he corrects, eyeing the insignia of a rose spread atop where her clit rests hidden, delitescent, should he part soft folds already glistening.

“Hmm,” she responds, green sparking in the candlelight as she reaches behind her. He wrenches his focus away from her panties.

“I picked this up for us,” she murmurs, extending the bottle she brought in towards him and offering him an expansive view of her breasts in the process. “Silicone based, so it should work well in the water.”

Sasuke swallows as he stares. It takes him a second, or perhaps three, to remember how his arm works, caught in the lovely spread of her cleavage.

“I was thinking you could try it first,” she continues after his hand brushes hers, knuckles brushing and lingering before she pulls her arm back. Her eyes are aflame with adoration as he rests his forearm against the top edge of the tub, well out of her way.  “Make sure it works well.” Her gaze flickers towards the bottle perched on the stool. “And I thought maybe my husband might like a massage, too.”

“I would,” he affirms in a heartbeat, and Sakura smiles, gaze flickering briefly to his lap unabashedly prior to her focus returning to his face. 

Carefully, she kneels slightly and reaches out with her right hand until her fingertips are grazing the hair that hides his Rinnegan. She sifts it out of the way incredibly slowly, purposefully dragging her fingertips just so across his cheek to briefly skim his eyelashes. 

The manner in which she leans in after is achingly slow, tension, tension, tension as her palm glides to the side of his neck, just barely tracing the skin, searing affection into his epidermis.

Her lips linger just shy of his cheek for several scattered seconds before they delicately press there, covertly innocent when he appreciates from experience that she is anything but. There is the slightest stick when she pulls away after a bated breath - he can feel the lipstick left there, averment of her branding - but instead of pulling back, the fingers at his neck trace underneath his chin in a way that sends a tremor down straight to his cock. 

She slants his chin away from her.

“Good,” she whispers where he will hear her most clearly, pink scarcely skimming the outer lobe of his ear. The exhale of breath pushes a few strands of hair fluttering in the steamy air.

He shivers.

Sakura rises nonchalantly, looking at him with unmistakable fervency and a smile.

Carefully, she takes the bottle from his hand where it still sits, nearly forgotten in favor of the other things he would like to touch. His eyes heed her actions with great interest as she deposits a healthy amount of the clear liquid substance into his hand. 

There’s the expression again, the one where she looks like she’s biting back a smile as she turns on her heel, apparently intent on obtaining the massage oil.

Sasuke pumps his cock as Sakura bends, rear enticingly turned upwards in his direction as she makes quick work of coating her own hands in oil. A lambent trickle of moisture is just barely receding down one of her inner thighs, leading away from her center. The lubricant coating his own hand is nice, much better than simple water to give desired friction and remaining rather than dissolving away in the bath. His wife is intelligent, an astute scientist - this he knows well - but it’s nice when her knowledge occasionally crosses over to this particular brand of interaction.

It’s been quite a long time since they attempted anything involving water, sparing shower sex. He finds himself recalling a particularly lovely evening spent in the Land of Mountains, before Sarada was conceived: a clear lake in early summer, wildflowers flooding its edges, and silvery-golden moonlight dappling Sakura’s skin.

You're beautiful, he'd whispered in her ear prior to situating her thighs on his shoulders, spreading her completely to his view. She'd squeaked in surprise at the abrupt position change, but he’d coaxed her to lay straight backwards, her upper body floating before him atop the water while he stood slightly deeper, toes secured in the sand.

He'd been pretty creative back then, young and incredibly in love, content to watch her writhe, floating before him in all her glory while he lapped at her arousal until she was reduced to a sweet, quivering mess, Anata dripping strained dusken honey to his ears.

He's still creative now, he thinks as he watches the small drip of her arousal saunter down her leg, and more in love with her and her flowers than ever; fourteen years of marriage and a child will do that. Their bathtub isn’t quite big enough to spread her out like he had back then, but there are still other options. 

All in due time.

Sakura rises agonizingly slowly prior to circling back to him, expression laden with something audacious. Her gaze drops to where he’s stroking himself lazily, and he’s pretty sure her eyes glaze over a little. A spike of concupiscence enkindles in his pelvis.

The edge of the bathtub, around the back, is where her path leads; apparently this is where she intends to start.

Her fingertips are balmier than usual, touch damned incinerating once she makes the grazing contact with his back. He feels himself twitch in his own hand as she rests just the tips against his skin, descending downwards only two at a time to leave spoors of torridity in their wake. It’s just her right to begin with; he thinks her left must be hanging idle at her side as of yet. 

It’s clear she intends to drag this out, not that he’s complaining.

His back feels like it’s gone aflame entirely within just a minute or two. Sasuke closes his eyes, focuses on the subtle sensations of Sakura’s fingers creating rivulets down his trapezius, his deltoid, and further, down his abdomen. They then glisten up his sides, pressure light and affectionate around the curvature of the right half of his ribcage, tracing each bone with delicacy before she shifts her devoted attentions to his arm. 

Her breasts, veiled in the dainty fabric, press ever so lightly against his back now as her right index finger trails languidly along the underneath of his arm, pausing to trace each scar. His pulse seems to jump in time with her pacing, torturously slow. He pumps himself accordingly, eyes still closed to nothing but the dim glow of candles fracturing through his eyelids and the heady aroma of roses laced with jasmine and the feel of her nipples peaking at his back.

It’s a compelling encounter that she’s created here, an idyll heavily saturated with an influx of romantic intent and an experience that overwhelms every one of his senses thus far aside from taste, though he intends to get that, too, shortly.

When she reaches his elbow, he pauses in his ministrations on himself. He shortly thereafter opens his eyes to see that she has paused in her own odyssey of his feverish skin.

“Don’t stop on my account, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura croons in his ear, lips dangerously close to the flush rising up his neck as her breasts press much more firmly at his back. He can feel the outline of every stitch of dot and floral patterning against his skin, lining of her bustier pressing to his scapula on his right side along with the full curve of the breast it encases. 

Sasuke swallows, eyeing the now lone index finger, poised in wait on the interior of his elbow; she’s dropped away the other.

Ultimately he pumps himself once more, languidly with a barely audible grunt, and she rewards him by continuing her previous pathway. The dainty digit he watches raptly could level granite, he knows, yet now it is achingly soft, flitting at the edges of his awareness at a pace he can hardly stand as his toes flex into the watery bouquet draped atop the bath.

Sakura stops just beneath his wrist, the scant amount of muscle there slowly ebbing and flexing with the motion of gripping his cock. She traces nonsensical patterns amongst the intertwining of his veins, circular motions twice, thrice, and more. Unhurried, she begins upping the pressure, pushing further and further into the flesh at his wrist until his patience is pulled maddeningly taut. It’s much like an arrow pulled onto the string of a bow about to be loosed, except the nocking point is a sliver of desirous delirium moving in time with his hand that depletes any credence to his aim. She really does know how to get him worked up.

A mincing giggle resounds in her throat, and she swipes her thumb over his wrist dotingly before pressing her lips to the tender skin atop his right shoulder, another outline of her mouth marking what’s hers.

“You’re so handsome, Anata,” she whispers coyly against his skin, overlaid atop the stain of pink she’s left; he can see it from his peripheral vision. “Do you know how often I think about you like this?”

A flush sears its path up the thoroughfare that is his own neck.

“I think about it in the morning, when dawn hits your eyes as you just wake up and you’re stretching,” she continues in a voice that’s dropped an octave, mouth hovering dangerously close to his ear. 

Her index finger finds the inner portion of his wrist again, smoothing down its expanse in a way that makes his mind hum with anticipation.

“I think about it when I’m in the kitchen,” she confides in a tone that’s just a little shy. “I think of how you scoot me onto the counter and kiss my neck if we’re alone.”

Further heat pools into his belly, contributing to the conflagration that is his need.

“I think about it,” she pauses, soft lips scantily touching the outer lobe, “When I’m alone in my office at work for the day, and we’ve made love beforehand, and the evidence is...” 

Her lips graze the edge of his ear, soft and insistent, and he shudders as she nibbles on it. Steam and flora and something distinctly feminine saturate his insides as he inhales.

Sakura’s tongue trails along the lobe now, continuing past the bottom of his ear to the portion of his neck just underneath. It’s where he’s most sensitive, a clear penchant of his that made itself known early on in their physical relationship. She exploits it often.

“I think about it,” she murmurs against his skin, “When you’re in the garden, planting the window herbs when I didn’t even ask you to yet.” Sakura giggles again, voice soft as satin and bewitchingly feminine. “Such a sweet husband I have.”

Sasuke swallows.

“...Is that what this is?” He questions, voice husky. He succeeds at pulling off a teasing lilt despite the back-breaking want throbbing in his pelvis and the way his pulse is thrumming. “A reward for doing things unasked?”

Sakura sucks on the skin below his ear lightly, and another shiver trails down every inch of him, rippling through his axis and all of his restraint amidst an abeyance of flower petals. 

Apt, he thinks.

“No,” she hums, licking the same spot now prior to shifting her lips back up to his ear. 

“...This is me being unreasonably aroused by the sight of you bent over in the garden, sweat trailing down your neck.” She takes a moment to lick his lobe a little. “Your backside is sinful, Sasuke-kun… Though I’ve had the set for a few days now, I’ll admit. A ninja strikes when the time is right, no?”

“...It’s a nice set,” he manages gruffly, before adding, insistent, “I’m not sleeping, though.”

Her laugh is a twinkling sound in his ear. Sasuke will never get tired of hearing it; it reminds him of sunshine, of wildflowers at the boundaries of a lake, rippling in the breeze.

“No,” she agrees. “You’re not. Though you might be before I’m done with you.”

The words in their unveiled desire send another shiver rippling through him.

Her index finger finally wanders past his wrist, over his knuckles as she chuckles in his ear. She curls her hand atop his, increasing the pressure gripping his cock. A grunt wrings its way out of his throat as she begins to help him work himself; her fingers are quickly saturated with the lubricant.

“I love you,” she tells him softly, pressing another sweltering kiss to his ear as her other arm briefly smoothes across the stump on his other side, gently tracing circles into the puckered skin. His insides promptly become rosewater themselves at those words; usually Sakura saves them for after.

Following a few more pumps of his length in both their hands, her thumb begins to wander. It trails along his shaft, rounding over the head deliciously as her lips at his neck turn him into putty. Pretty soon her hand is leaving his own, angling over the other side to cup the entirety of him instead as a bead of pre-come gathers at the tip. Sasuke tries to resist the urge to buck up into her, knowing this is just teasing.

Still. The feather-light touch at his cock is bitingly hard to resist. Everything is feeling quite hazy in the buildup, like it’s the blur of pastel itself maculating every inch of his skin, coating him in redolence.

Eventually Sakura draws her hand back to herself, and he inhales a steadying breath.

“I think it’s time for that massage,” she murmurs, very clearly amused. 

There is the sound of rubbing - he assumes it’s to even out the oil still leftover on her left hand - and then both hands are at his back, beginning much the same way she did previously before gradually circling into larger arches. She kneads certain spots that are prone to knots with exceeding care; Sakura has done this for him many times, working tension out of him in the way only she can. Her thumbs align at his upper spine and begin pushing down slowly, dual pressure melting down rigidity as he continues to languidly stroke himself.

Seconds scatter in the flickering candlelight, and then her hands are a little lower, smoothing themselves along the dip at the small of his back and into the water. The petals present there congregate around her wrists as they stay submerged behind him, lapping at his lower back.

“This is payback for earlier,” she whispers softly against his nape as her hands finish their descent and she cops an entirely unashamed feel, though she has two hands, so she’s able to grab more at once.

“And remind me: who was ogling who in the garden?” He asks in a strained voice, overcome by her hands lingering at his backside. Even her grip there is sensually charged, enough to sear additional heat into his skin.

Sakura presses a kiss to his middle back, right where the tail ends of his trapezius muscles overlay themselves atop his spine.

“Guilty as charged,” she teases breathily, pulling neither her lips nor her hands away from his skin just yet. “Are you going to lock me up?”

“No,” he insufflates as her fingers trail around from his rear to the sides of his hips, evaporating the words out of him in an instant in exchange for the cusp of something much, much better.

He feels her smile against his skin, kind and sweet. 

“Such a gentleman.” Her hands smoothe along the planes of both his thighs, dangerously close to where he badly wants her. 

He carefully removes his own hand, a gambit, because she might not be through with her teasing just yet, but she crosses the boundary swiftly, easily taking over as if it was all part of her own plan. 

His wife’s touch is light at first, fingertips dragging minute pleasures around his thickened length, his sacs. The skin of her arms flows astride his sides, squeezing slightly inward as she moves. She presses another kiss to his back, slow in tandem with her pacing at his cock. 

When she finally gives him a particularly good pump in exactly the manner she knows he likes, he groans quietly, unrestrained, savoring the long-awaited arrival of more friction. The lubricant this way is much better than simple water; he stays slick even now.

“Sakura,” he mumbles impatiently, voice thick. 

Her touch tapers as she presses one more affectionate kiss at his back.

Then she rises, hands falling away before she rounds the tub and steps gingerly into the bath, still clothed.

She’s a vision, a temptress emerging from a pool of the divine straight out of any hot-blooded man’s fantasies. The petals pool in clusters around her skin as she sinks into the water, coming to straddle him on his lap where he badly wants her. He situates his arm around her, pressing at the small of her back, then her rear, to guide her into place.

“Sasuke-kun,” she says cheekily, suffix dissolving into something more wanton as the front of her panties aligns with his length and she grinds herself against him, underthings now soaked in peach-toned bathwater and her own essence. Her hands find purchase on his skin again, one on his thigh and the other on his shoulder. 

It’s quite a picture. He activates his Sharingan to capture it, though he recognizes there is no way he could forget an image this lovely, his wife flushing in a plethora of petals, cast in erotic candlelight with smudged pink lipstick.

She starts to whine, green eyes growing heavier with need as her thighs straddle him; it seems she was rather enjoying the process of getting him worked up. He leans in so she can finally mark his lips, so he can feel her tremor against his own mouth. It’s a mess of feverish tongue, clacking teeth, and the sensation of smeared rose along his cheek as they part.

He trails his own fingers teasingly up the curve of her hip, arching into her neck and angling her head, because an idea has occurred to him.

“Stand up, Tsuma,” he breathes there, grinding only once more. She blushes darker, exhaling somewhat breathlessly as color floods her skin and inks her freckles almost entirely out of existence, but she does as he says, until she’s standing and her sex is within easy range of his mouth. It’s a perk of their height difference, though he’s never made use of it here.

He licks a stripe right up the rose he’d been fixated on earlier, tonguing Sakura through her soaked panties, breathing in the scent of her and jasmine and blooms. He greatly enjoys the texture against his tongue, dainty lace covering her swollen clit. It becomes even more abundantly clear that she was enjoying herself, in terms of the massage and what followed; the flavor of her dominates his taste buds, clearly soaked through the meager fabric. The lace is all but dripping nectar at this point.

Her hands thread their way through his hair, essentially the only spot she can reach of him at this height, standing as she is. Green eyes peer down at him headily, pupils overblown and blush eking all the way down her chest and toned stomach. He sucks at the flesh through the fabric, and she moans sweetly in a way that makes him ache, pretty pink mouth parting slightly in a shaky exhale. Small rivulets drip down her legs, petals clinging to her smooth skin and toes curling next to his thighs.

“Anata,” she moans as he releases her clit in favor of licking her again, tasting the slight essence of the bath but mostly her own honey, thickly saturating her panties. 

He makes a low noise in his throat, reverberation going both right to his rigid cock and echoing around where she’s most sensitive in his mouth again. He knows she likes it when he does that.

“Sasuke-kun,” she moans once more, fingers gripping him marginally harder in efforts to increase the pressure, hips arching towards him. He grips her left cheek in full behind her, encouraging her to press against him how she needs and enjoying the plush rounding of her backside. Her breasts are jostling in the bustier, erect nipples arching in time with her back as she grinds in search of pleasure. 

Sasuke knows his wife, and what each of her tones of voice mean. Currently the intonation is climbing higher, each breath she takes synchronized with the undulation of his tongue against where she’s most sensitive.

He thus abandons his station at her backside and instead makes use of his hand to gently pull the fabric covering her clit aside in favor of lapping at her directly. 

Sakura’s breathing stutters, broken and gasping as he licks his way into her folds, slick now beginning to coat his chin in full. He revolves his tongue in gentle circles, an easy cadence with which to make her sing his name higher and higher. 

He’s at it for only another minute or two, slow teasing followed by ramped up efforts and one final suction-laced tugging before all of Sakura’s muscles tighten and she softly, wantonly whispers the term of endearment again, this time teetering on the edge.

“Anata- ”

She’s a vision as she falls apart on his lips, tremors quaking through her body as her muscles spasm and pleasure floods her being. She grinds into him, clutching at his hair as she exhales, looking down at him with glazed green eyes and amaranthine cheeks. Her thighs stiffen for a long drawn out moment, and then she’s near collapsing.

Sasuke knows his wife, so he grips her thigh with his hand as his lips fall away from her, ensuring she doesn’t lose traction in the slippery tub.

Sakura sags down slowly, muscles slack from release, using his good shoulder and the opposite side of the tub for leverage. He kisses her cheek when she’s all the way down and still panting, clothed arousal at his erection again; his lips leave just the barest hint of blush on her own skin.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, Sharingan tomoe still spinning as her eyes blink open gradually as if she’s groggy, heavily laden with the weight of her uniquely colored lashes; the expression she’s wearing currently, the voluptuously flushed stupor of being well fucked, might as well be a narcotic to him with the intensity at which he craves it. His hand skirts along her neck, then her shoulder, before coming to rest at her back. 

Even with what he’s just done to her, Sakura’s cheeks still burn redder at the compliment. 

In lieu of answering, she grinds against his arousal, still hard, emanant from the bath; the petals atop the water create ripples with the motion. Sasuke swallows a hiss, hand falling to grip at her backside as she grinds again.

She leans her upper body forward in clear intent, settling further so she can press a kiss to his neck, then his chest as she entangles herself with him again, exhaling with abandon as he groans in full. More pink marks his body, pale and branding her color into his skin. 

“Sakura,” he manages just afore a particularly thrilling grind, a lone desperate breath at her forehead.

Jade eyes peek up at him, cheeks red and lipstick even further smudged than before. Something like understanding settles in her gaze.

She then leans in to whisper in his ear.

“How would you like me, Sasuke-kun?” The mellifluous phrasing sends a thrill into his every blood vessel.

Briefly several enticing options flood his mind, but really only one of them allows him to continue to enjoy the full view of the lingerie his wife is wrapped in.

He clutches her back, gripping a few stray flower petals in the process. He absentmindedly feels a few clinging to his own skin, too, the spread of lavender petals at his wrist and perhaps a rose petal enamored with his lower back.

“Turn with me,” he breathes, shifting his legs. She lifts her own as well, and they rotate together until his back rests against the side of the tub adjacent to the wall. He settles his own legs into a wider stance before using the leverage to plant his feet somewhat upright on the floor of the tub.

“Lean back,” he instructs quietly. 

Something like recognition edges into her expression, and then she’s smiling, shiny pink lilting skyward at the corners.

“Want to enjoy the view, Sasuke-kun?” She asks cheekily, lashes fluttering in an incredibly alluring manner.

“Yes,” he grunts truthfully, lost in the reflet of her irises as she rubs against him one more time purposefully. She ultimately follows his instruction, using her arms to search behind her for the edge of the tub. Her back arches slightly as she does so, and he swallows at the sight of her nipples, both poking up through floral fabric.

Sasuke manipulates both knees so they rise out of the tub, and effectively they are in position; him with legs positioned away from him on both sides, full breadth and leverage to drive his hips upwards, and Sakura poised above him with her sex still in his lap. Her own arms are behind her to assist in anchorage, able to pull herself perpendicular using the far edge of the pale porcelain.

He runs his lone hand up her side, dragging along the fabric of her panties, a stray rose petal, then up to cup a breast as he presses a kiss to her clavicle, near right in front of him. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs again prior to his mouth’s descent downward, lolling his tongue around a nipple through the thin fabric. Sasuke doesn’t close his eyes; instead he settles them on her above him, tomoe still spinning to capture the confection that is her chest flushed in response to his attentions, framed beautifully with pastel coloring and intricacies of thread. She is quite a sight, indeed, wet and ripe for the taking. 

He settles backwards, a string of saliva forming and eventually severing from his mouth to lace before he brings his fingers to her clit. She’s even more beautiful to him as he rubs her gently, teasingly through the fabric, breasts shuddering in time with her breath as she arches into his touch. The muscles in her arms constrict behind her, just the tiniest bit shaky in holding her own weight as Sakura’s muscles tend to be during their trysts. Flower petals in white, lavender, and pink crowd around her thighs and rear, clinging to the plush skin. 

He strokes her once more lovingly, earning himself a soft moan of his name before he delicately pulls her slickened underwear to the side, curved around her thigh. 

Then he’s angling his cock to align himself fully with her, and pushing inside with the softest sigh.

“Tsuma, ” he groans, overcome because she’s just as slick as ever, deliciously tight petals folding over him. He’s sheathed fully in less than a second, Sakura letting out a low cry of satisfaction above him. She lets gravity pull her weight downward until he’s feeling the pulse of her heartbeat through her walls, grip shifting on the rim of the tub slightly as her head lolls. 

He gently pulls her transparent panties back into place, fabric scarcely covering her clit before it’s kept aside due to his length inhibiting it. He wants to tease her for a bit, to fully savor the mesmeric sight of her flushed above him, primaveral and gasping at the pleasure of their union.

He thumbs her sloppily at the first thrust, digit circling her clit as he grinds into her, and her moan echoes through the candlelit space, ecstasy lapping at the water around them. The angle’s not quite right, and he pauses so she can hook her feet into place on the floor of the tub over top of his thighs. She can just barely reach.

Perfect, he thinks as he thrusts again, cloying friction and soft exhales coloring her redder than roses. Her hair is clinging to her neck with sweat, entire body blushing darker than the freckles that ebb and flow in patterns on her skin. The petals dance in time with the slow, unhurried pace he sets, circling buoyant atop the luminescent refractions of the water. Jasmine, rose, Sakura muddle his mind until he’s nothing but vespertine flesh and raw untempered emotion, reaching for sweet heat and something more as she meets his thrusts in time with the aid of gravity and ardency.

Sakura whines when he finally gives her an increment more pressure, angling her body as her walls flutter around him slightly. It’s enough to make him groan again, hardly aware of the noise hot and heavy in the back of his throat; his thoughts are a tumultuary mess right now, less of a process and more of a spring susurrus scattering new blooms into the sky haphazardly.

His gaze briefly flickers from fine furrowed brows and an open mouth to the place where they join, watching where he slides into her until her luscious backside meets his pelvis and memorizing the vulgar slapping sound their skin is making when they connect. He’s completely slick with her, his entire lap honeyed.

He picks up the pace when she whimpers, pausing each time he’s fully sheathed to really grind against where she likes it. The tactility of the lace separating his thumb from her helps him in his restraint, keeping him somewhat grounded so as not to rush the loveliness of this treat, smitten as he is. 

“Sasuke-kun,” she moans openly, tantalizingly smudged pink dragging against a tooth caught on her lip. He wants to kiss the rest of the lipstick off her, he realizes as he looks up at her crimson face, but the way she’s currently spread open above him is too tempting to ruin, so he contents himself with watching her brow contort instead, her cheeks dark with desire and jade barely visible in a flood of black pupils.

She feels so good surrounding him, absolute heaven in sinful pink folds, the sound of skin slapping and miniature waves breaking apart with each thrust a symphony unlike any other. His entire world is a blur, a pastiche of pastel petals, dainty lace, flushed floral, and dotted freckles.

Eventually he looks away, ramping up the pressure where she’s most sensitive even further, because if he keeps watching her breasts bounce in the bodice of the garment like that, he’s going to come too soon.

“Anata,” she mumbles hastily in a higher pitch, caught off guard by the intensified attention and desperate for more of him, settling back onto him each time with increasing fervor. “Anata, Anata.”

It’s too much, quintessential to his being and precious. He groans her name back, then the endearment, over and over and over as she sinks onto him, tsuma blooming on his tongue like it’s spring instead of summer. Passion laces his insides as his ab muscles constrict at the saccharine friction.

“Anata,” she moans more clearly, a eutony as her mouth falls further open, lips full and plump from kissing. “Please.” Another thrust, stalled momentum, and another dulcet moan that’s music to his ears, and then again. “Please.”

Sasuke will not let it be said that he denies his wife anything. 

He abandons his teasing and pushes her underwear aside fully again, resumes touching her skin to skin as her breath catches in relief. His fingers find her clit easily, stroking in time with the pace at which they’re making love. Sakura rides into the pressure further, panting and making sweet little gasping noises as her heat envelops him. It’s not long before he’s gasping for each breath, too, cock twitching inside her as he somehow gets harder, the telltale sign that he’s close.

He slows his thrusting purposefully, instead choosing to grind where he’s still inside her as his fingers pick up the pace.

Her thighs stiffen, and she’s panting above him as her arms begin to shake and her torso tenses. She shudders once prior to pushing against his fingers insistently, desperately.

“Anata -”

It’s good that she’s on the edge already, because the sight and sounds before him are too erotic to last longer. He loves when she calls him that.

Sakura gasps when she comes, a broken version of his endearment fleeing her lips as he resumes his thrusting to fuck her through it. Her heat squeezes him, spasming around his cock in a way that causes his soul to leave his body for a good enduring second. His mouth falls open in the second syllable of her name, the third following a delayed three seconds later as the coil snaps.

He comes hard, grinding up with the full power of his leg muscles as support as he empties inside her. Gravity insists at this angle that everything be instantly coated in it, slick sloshing erotically inside as he groans her endearment again. He’s delirious with it all and the sight of her singed into his retinas, well and truly blind with pleasure.

After, he’s panting, asomatous, small flames barely recognized in his peripheral vision in favor of a very flushed Sakura. 

He eventually gathers that she’s collapsed atop him, arms abandoning their station at the edge of the tub in favor of surrounding him with warmth and pink head of hair clustered at his sweaty neck. Her soft exhales as she catches her breath are warm against his skin. 

The water’s cold, he realizes as a meager shiver runs up his spine, hardly mattering just yet due to the flood of endorphins he’s swimming in. He doesn’t really care, but with his wife in mind, he reaches for the drain of the tub, pulling it out before he settles his arm back around her. He’ll turn the hot water on to draw them a new bath in a second, once the afterglow has ebbed. 

For now, Sasuke holds his wife close, and whispers in her hair, at the crown of her head.

“I love you.”

He feels her lips quirk upwards as the water sinks away, tub slowly lowering from half full to a quarter full. It makes her weight, slight as it may be, settle more against his sensitivity, no longer buoyed by liquid’s diminished gravity. Each little motion of settling is enough to make his breath catch; her heat is twitching slightly even now, aftershocks of her orgasm squeezing his softening length.

“I love you,” she murmurs back, still panting a bit while looking up at him with soft eyes, and this is Sasuke’s favorite part about intimacy with his wife: the afterglow that follows, tender words and the compulsion to simply lie around together as the endorphins and that of the sempiternal bring them ever closer.

He then reflects on his earlier notion to kiss what remains of her lipstick away. 

Better late than never, he reasons.

A shiver runs through her body as he follows through with the thought; he feels it where his hand is settled at the small of her back. Her lips are a gift against his own, laden with tenderness and the kind of intimacy that’s tempered with over a decade of practice.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, kissing and still intimately joined as the last drop drains from the tub and the petals begin to cling to the porcelain. The tiny scintillae of the candles are the only measure of time, really, though it’s not as if he’s looking at them.

Eventually Sakura shivers again, this time surely from the cold.

“Can you reach the faucet?” She asks softly between kisses, looking up at him with clear amusement.

He blinks, still somewhat in the phase where words other than sweet nothings take extra processing time, before uncurling his arm from her and trying while she presses another kiss to the corner of his mouth. 

No such luck; his arm is just a couple of inches too short with where he’s seated.

“I could make a clone,” he mumbles against her mouth, and she chuckles.

“No, no, we should probably get up anyways.” A lopsided grin, mellow with multiple climaxes, is overtaking her face. “I got lipstick all over you, Sasuke-kun. Now you actually do need a bath.”

Sasuke sighs in reference to the first part of her statement, resigned, and she giggles before rising off him.

There’s a slick drag of his sensitive skin within her walls that has him pushing down a noise in the back of his throat, and then they’ve separated, a lengthy string of white connecting them both. The rest pools out of her slowly, glistening against pink prior to saturating the lace of her panties that’s touching her folds. 

“You need one, too,” he observes, smirking as she halfheartedly swats him before blasting the water. The evidence of their coupling begins to wash away, but the blush adorning her face lingers. 

She lets it run for about thirty seconds - the temperature of the water shifts from warm to truly hot, most of the evidence down the drain - and then returns the plug so that the tub will fill again. She settles beside him, after, carefully stripping off the lingerie with legerity to discard over the curved edge of the tub. 

Eventually her hand finds his, too, and she intertwines their fingers together as his breath finally evens out. 

Jade eyes slip closed as she leans her head back, enjoying the return of clysmic warmth to the bath. The petals rise slowly, fluttering over their legs and joined hands. Sasuke is struck by the thought that though he’s bathed with his wife in the past, they’ve never sat in a tub in this position, still sideways with legs bent. He finds it a rather nice change of pace.

Sakura switches the dial off once it’s full, then turns to him to begin gently rubbing lipstick off his cheek with a wet hand.

“What’s the name of the lipstick?” He asks as she rinses her hand in the fresh water and moves to another kiss mark she’s left on his neck.

Sakura giggles, blushing pinker than her hair.

“Glazed Pink,” she replies softly, biting her lip as she moves her alembic touch to the other side of his neck.

He snorts, observing her incredulously before sneaking a hand down beneath the surface to tickle her side. 

“What are you doing here?” Naruto all but sobs. 

“Uh…there was a lecture series on cellular therapy?” And also there was always really good catering. Sakura tightens her grip on her bounty. 

“But…but…” 

Now Naruto really does look like he is about to cry. 

“Naruto, what happened? Are you okay?” She tries to lay a comforting hand on his shoulder without dropping all the free food in her purse. 

“I…I asked Sasuke…if he wanted to get ramen and drinks,” she could barely make out the words in between his tears, “and he said no because he was on a date!” 

—

If she had less confidence in their relationship, Sakura would have probably immediately been plunged into the pits of despair that their mutual friend was currently wallowing in. 

But Sakura and Sasuke had been going steady for the last year and a half. Or as Sasuke likes to point out, “we’ve been together for 2 years Sakura.” 

In that time, Sakura likes to believe that she has gotten a good handle on how her boyfriend (of a year and a half Sasuke-kun!) communicates. 

Sasuke is a man of few words but his blunt way of speaking and grunts have their own nuances. 

She knows that to him, efficiency and brevity are key and he doesn’t say more than he needs to. After all, he is a man who expresses himself with his actions. 

Perhaps that’s why she loves him so much.

And also why she is so annoyed she always has to pick up after him when his lack of communication gets him in trouble. 

After all, Sasuke had been under the impression that their anniversary was a full 6 months earlier than it actually is!

And despite Naruto’s claims that Sasuke was indeed doing something shady and salacious with an unknown party, Sakura had been receiving cat memes from the so-called adulter the entire time she was in the auditorium. 

When she gets back home, she of course finds Sasuke lying on her couch watching cat videos on his phone. 

Like where she thought he would be. 

“Welcome back,” He mumbles. She hears her phone chime, no doubt Sasuke sending her another cat video. “Do you need help?” 

Although he asks her, Sasuke is already taking her bag out of her hands and unpacking all the food she took from her lecture.

“Hey, we need to talk.”

Sasuke’s head snaps up. He knows that tone, it’s the one she uses when he has done something she doesn’t particularly like.

“About what.”  Is this because he didn’t go to that talk with her? Or because he sent her a funny cat meme every five minutes so that she couldn’t concentrate? Or?…

“Sasuke-kun,” Sakura pauses trying to find the words. Sasuke tries not to allow the panic show in his face. “Did you tell Naruto that you were on a date tonight?” 

“Oh that.” 

“Yes that! You should have seen him! He was distraught!” 

Sasuke doesn’t seem too concerned. He is already reaching for the food. “Don’t mind him.”

“He thought you were cheating on me!” 

“He is an idiot.” 

Which in its own way, the tone of that last comment is very reassuring to Sakura. But she still has to at least make sure that Sasuke does not cause any other unsavory misunderstandings! 

She sighs, “You should just tell him you don’t want to hang out with him today. You are going to cause Naruto so much stress when he assumes stuff wrong.” 

Sasuke gives her a look. 

“I’m sure he would have understood if you just wanted to spend some time alone.” 

“Sakura,” his eyes are piercing, “he would have kept asking.”

She rolls her eyes, but Sakura still finds a comfortable spot on the couch to cuddle up next to him. 

“Plus the dumbass is much more scared of you than me.” 

—  

It is 8 pm on a Friday night before Sakura gets home. All she wants to do is shower and curl up in bed and watch true crime documentaries. 

She is about a 3rd of a way through her to-do list when her phone rings. 

Of course, it’s Ino. She glances at the time and knows that there is only one thing her best friend wants at this hour. 

“Girl! Let’s go!” Ino is likely already downtown if the pulsing club music wasn’t already a give away. “Let’s get DRUNK!”

No, how about Sakura take an 8 hour nap?

“Sorry Ino, I’m out with Sasuke right now. Maybe next time!” 

“What? UGH! Boo!” And with that Ino hangs up. 

Relieved, Sakura burrows under her covers. Sasuke, who had been in her bed since she got into the shower, curls up beside her. 

As Sakura reaches for her laptop, Sasuke rolls over to face her, propping himself up with one arm and asks “So you want to do it?” 

The way he smiles smugly at her antics and similar tactics makes Sakura want to mess with him a little. 

“Sex? Now?”

Sasuke’s ears immediately heat up. 

“What? No! I mean yes…I mean,” Sakura giggles at his flustered reaction as he continues, “do you want to go on these dates?” 

“I do.” the way Sasuke looks at her makes her warm, “but maybe later.” 

She wraps her arms around him and tucks her head underneath his chin. Sasuke responds with a peck on the forehead. “I like it here too.”