The Bond by wonderbug

Three

It was just sex.

Without pausing, he pulled her up against his stony chest. Her yukata splayed open as he thrust into her from below. Her legs curled back around his muscular thighs. Her nails dug into his forearms for purchase.

Just sex—purely physical. It meant nothing.

What she felt meant nothing.

Her head fell back as his hand smoothed down the exposed plane of her stomach. Stretched and spread as she was, there was nothing to prevent him. Whimpering, she bucked against his knowing caress, her worn inner muscles drawing taut once again.

He was Inuyasha’s older brother. Her own brother by marriage. But she pushed these thoughts aside as he sank his fangs into the base of her throat. His fingers circled over her slippery skin. Pain commingled with pleasure until her vision blurred and her nerves ignited, and she cinched around him for the third time that afternoon.

The last time, she told herself again.

He brought his fingers to the slick junction of their bodies. As he followed the course of his own rigid, striving flesh, his urgency heightened and his release bled into her at last—searing and powerful and deep. Beneath the iron bar of his arm she could scarcely breathe. Her ribs compressed with bruising force.

As stars began to fleck her vision, she finally felt the pressure ease. Bonelessly, she slid down the incline of his lap. His waning erection glided hot and wet along her split backside.

Still somewhat dazed, she touched her hand to the trickle of blood wending its way down her collarbone and darkening the front of her yukata. She stared wonderingly for a moment at the redness staining her fingertips before turning toward him with a frown.

“You bit me,” she said.

He, too, was gazing inscrutably at the bite mark on her neck.

“It will heal,” he replied, after a moment.

“That’s not the point,” Kagome fumed. “I’m going home tomorrow—how am I supposed to explain this?”

His voice cooled. “How you explain it is up to you.”

She looked away as he stood. The darkness of the hut mercifully obscured his nakedness as he stepped around her and began to dress. Exhausted emotionally and physically, she cradled her burning face in her hands.

“You could remain here, until the wound heals.”

She glanced up at him through the gaps in her fingers. He was decent again. His pearly clothes were so light they seemed almost to glow. Maybe, in fact, they did.

“I can’t,” she said, fighting to keep the tremor out of her voice. “I was only supposed to be gone for a week. If I stay any longer, Inuyasha'll come looking for me.”

The last thing in the world she wanted was for him to find her here.

Sesshoumaru's gaze flickered. “I see.”

She ducked her head. There was nothing for it. She would just have to lie to her husband.

Again.

Sensing Sesshoumaru drawing near, she looked up. Solemnly, he reached out. His claw tips traced feather-light around the punctures in her throat.

“I apologize,” he said. His lashes lowered slightly. “This Sesshoumaru will be more careful next time.”

Kagome stiffened. Next time, he presumed. A riot of emotions rose within her—shock, pain, outrage. He had no reason to jump to that kind of conclusion. He had no right to touch her like that, either.

Hopefully,” she bit out, her eyes flashing as she brushed his hand away, “there won’t be a ‘next time.’”

He met her gaze levelly before he turned and left the hut. She glared after him. Her fingertips trembled as she raised them once more to her bloodied neck.

The spot where he had touched her felt electrified still. Her stomach clenched even now at the memory of the sensation.

Furious and panicked and vaguely sick, her mind raced back over what he had done, what he had said. Remain here, he’d suggested. But was that all he’d meant?

Still cradling her lust-broken skin, Kagome wasn’t sure.

Forcefully, she repressed that train of thought, unwilling to pursue it any further. All she could hope for now, as she cleaned herself off and set the hut to rights, was that his seed would take root, and she would never have to return to this place again. That she would never have to feel his hands upon her again.

Even if it was just sex, she still wanted it to be over.

Surely, he felt the same.