Ch.34
We didn't dry off.
We walked from the springs to the villa, her hand in mine, both of us barefoot on the stone path. She'd wrapped a towel around herself and I had one around my waist and our hair was dripping and the mountain air was cold on our wet skin. The villa was dark. Everyone else had gone to bed. The hallway to the second floor was quiet and our wet feet left prints on the wood.
My room. Futon on the tatami floor, the window open, moonlight coming in cold and blue. I slid the door shut behind us. Rias dropped the towel.
She was still flushed from the hot springs, her skin pink and warm, her crimson hair dark and heavy with water, sticking to her neck and her shoulders and the tops of her breasts. The moonlight caught the wet strands and turned them black-red. She stood there in my room and she was naked and wet and looking at me.
I dropped my towel. She stepped forward, put her hands on my chest, pushed me backward onto the futon.
I landed on my back. The futon was cool against my damp skin. She climbed over me, one knee on either side of my hips, and her wet hair fell around us and the cold water dripped from the ends onto my chest and my shoulders and the pillow. She settled her weight on me. My cock was hard against the inside of her thigh and she reached between us and took me in her hand and the grip was light, her fingers still warm, and she guided me to her pussy and sank down.
Slow.
She was still wet from the springs. Slick and swollen and the entry was easy and deep and she took me all the way in one long slide and her breath came out in a shudder and her hands braced on my chest and her head dropped forward.
Her forehead touched mine.
Her eyes were open. Blue-green, close enough to see the darker ring around the outside of the iris. Her crimson hair was a curtain around both of our faces, wet and heavy, shutting out the room. Her breath was warm on my mouth. Her body was warm around my cock, deep and full, and she held still for a long moment with me inside her, just breathing.
She started to move. Slow circles of her hips. Grinding, not thrusting. The deepness held. My cock barely shifted inside her but the angle changed with each circle, the walls of her pussy gripping and releasing in a slow rhythm that matched her hips. Her forehead stayed on mine. Her eyes stayed open. Her breathing was slow and deep and each exhale came out warm across my lips.
"Ise." Quiet. Her voice was raw from the springs, from everything that had happened in the water and on the stone.
My hands came up to her hips. I didn't guide her. I held her. My palms on the curves of her hips, my thumbs on the ridges of her hip bones, my fingers on the warm wet skin of her lower back.
Her pace didn't change. Each rotation was a complete circle, her clit grinding against the base of my cock on the forward press, and the wet sound was quiet in the room, barely audible over our breathing. Damp skin on damp skin and the soft slick sound of her body moving on mine. Her forehead on mine and her eyes on mine and her mouth parted and her lips close enough that her exhales touched my mouth.
I was hard inside her and the slow grinding was building. Each circle added pressure to the last. The heat of her was constant, tight, alive, and my cock ached with the depth and the patience. My hips pressed up on every pass and the fullness between us deepened by fractions and my hands on her hips tightened because the ache was building in the base of my spine and the slow pace was making it worse. Better.
She ground down again. Her pussy was getting wetter. The faint slick sound on each circle was louder than it had been a minute ago. Her breathing was coming faster across my lips, still controlled, still through her nose, but the exhales were shorter. Her eyes were on mine and her mouth was open and a line of water ran from her hair down her cheek and dripped from her jaw onto my chest.
"Nn-" Quiet. On the forward press of her hips. Her clit catching on the base of my cock and her stomach flexing and the sound small and pressed through her teeth.
Her hips circled. Circled. The wet sound got louder. Her breathing broke from her nose to her mouth, small warm huffs that landed on my lips. The futon was damp under us and the moonlight was blue across her shoulders and her breasts moved with each circle, slow, heavy from the water still in her hair.
I sat up. My abs flexed and her weight shifted and my cock pushed deeper with the angle change and she gasped, quiet, her hands going from my chest to my shoulders. My arms went around her waist and her arms went around my neck and we were sitting, her in my lap, my cock buried deep at the new angle, her legs wrapped around my back.
The depth was different. Closer. Tighter. The seated position pressed us flush together from hips to chest and every circle of her hips moved both of us and my cock was deeper than it had been on my back, the angle pressing against her front wall, and her breathing hitched when she felt it.
My face was in her neck. Her hair was wet against my cheek. She smelled like the springs, like sulfur and warm stone, and underneath that she smelled like her.
She kept grinding. Slow. The circles tighter now, smaller, more pressure on each pass. Her breath was at my ear and each exhale had a sound in it, a small "ah" she wasn't trying to make, pushed out by the depth and the angle. Her nails found my shoulders. She pressed them in and the sharp points of pain synced with each circle.
"Ise-" Half a breath. Her mouth at my ear. Her hips circling and her pussy clenching on the deep stroke and her nails digging in. "Ise-"
My name. The only word she had left. Her voice was quiet and cracked and each time she said it the circle tightened and the grip-release of her nails got faster on my shoulders. My cock was aching, the slow build from the grinding concentrated into a steady throb, and my hands on her lower back were pulling her against me and her body was hot and slick and close.
Her whole body locked.
She came so quietly I only knew because of her body. Every muscle rigid, her arms tight around my neck, her legs squeezing my waist, her pussy clenching in deep slow waves around me. Her nails broke skin. The sharp pain bloomed on both shoulders and I felt blood bead under her fingertips and her breath stopped and her mouth was open against my ear and no sound came out. Her body pulsed around me and her breath held and her nails held.
Then she exhaled. Long. Shaking. Her body softened against mine and her arms loosened and her nails withdrew and the sting left small warm lines on my shoulders.
The Boosted Gear's gem pulsed. Warm. The Devil energy flowed through her skin into mine and this time it was stronger than I expected. Ddraig had said established partners gave diminishing returns. This wasn't diminishing.
I was close. Had been for a while, the slow grind building in the base of my spine while her circles got tighter. Her aftershocks were pulling at me, her pussy clenching in slow fading waves. I pressed my face into her neck and my hands pulled her hips down and I pushed up, deep, and the ache crested and I came inside her. Long and slow, my hips pressed flush against hers, pulsing inside her, and she clenched with each pulse and her arms tightened around my neck and her wet hair was on my face and her body held mine.
We stayed sitting. Her weight on me. My arms around her. The futon was damp under us and the moonlight was cold through the window and her heartbeat was against my chest, fast, slowing.
She talked.
She told me about Sirzechs. About growing up with a brother who became a Satan before she turned ten. About being the Gremory heiress by default because the person who should have been the heir went and became the most powerful Devil in the Underworld and left the family's name and territory and expectations on his little sister's shoulders. She talked about dinners at the Gremory estate where foreign dignitaries looked at her and saw a bargaining chip. About Venelana, her mother, who taught her the Power of Destruction with patience and precision and then taught her how to smile during meetings where old men discussed her marriage like a property transfer.
She talked about the first time she heard the name Phenex. She was twelve.
My hand was in her hair. Slow strokes. The wet strands were drying, getting lighter, the crimson returning.
"Nobody asked me," she said. Her voice was quiet. Her face was against my shoulder. "About any of it. The engagement, the territory, the expectations. I was born and the path was already drawn."
Her breathing slowed. Her body got heavier against mine. I eased her down onto the futon and she curled against me, one arm across my chest, one leg over mine, her face in my shoulder. Her wet hair soaked the pillow.
"Her energy tonight carried something extra," Ddraig said. From far inside. Quiet. "Fear. The afraid ones give more."
I didn't respond.
"The transfer was larger than projected. Her anxiety amplified the exchange. If the pattern holds-"
I closed my eyes. Ddraig stopped talking.
Rias's arm tightened across my chest. She was asleep. Her breathing was steady and slow and the scratch marks on my shoulders stung when I shifted and her crimson hair was everywhere and I held her.
Morning.
The hallway was bright with mountain sun. I was wearing training pants and nothing else because my shirt situation had reached a crisis point. I walked downstairs to the kitchen.
Akeno was at the counter.
She was wearing one of my shirts. Grey. The same one Rias wore to breakfast last week. Except Rias was wearing a different one of my shirts upstairs, the black one, because she'd gotten dressed while I was still on the futon and she'd taken the first shirt she found in my closet like she owned it.
Akeno looked up from the tea she was pouring. Her violet eyes tracked my bare chest, paused on the scratch marks on my shoulders, and returned to the tea.
"Good morning, Ise-kun."
"Morning."
She poured a second cup. Set it on the counter. The orange ribbon in her ponytail caught the sunlight from the kitchen window.
Footsteps on the stairs. Rias came down wearing the black shirt and shorts, her crimson hair brushed and dry, her composure reassembled. She walked into the kitchen and saw Akeno in the grey shirt and Akeno saw Rias in the black shirt and both of them looked at me standing between them with no shirt at all.
"We need to buy you more shirts, Ise-kun," Akeno said.
Rias's mouth twitched. She sat at the counter and took the tea Akeno had poured and drank it without commenting on the shirt or the scratch marks or the fact that her Queen was standing in her boyfriend's kitchen wearing his laundry.
Akeno poured herself a cup and sat down. She crossed her legs and the shirt rode up on her thigh and she sipped her tea.
"The hot springs were very relaxing last night," Akeno said. "Peaceful. Quiet."
She sipped.
"Very quiet."
Rias's ears went red. She drank her tea faster.
I took the third cup and went outside to check on the training grounds. The morning air was cold and the sky was clear and the scratch marks on my shoulders stung in the wind.
Behind me in the kitchen, Akeno laughed. Low. Musical. The sound followed me out the door.