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Chapter 24 - The Fawn and the Predator
🕑 Added 2025-04-21 15:19:38 +0000 UTCShiho stood there, frozen in the aisle between stacks of forgotten jutsu theory and dusty clan registries. Her fingers still clenched the scroll like a shield, but the pages had wrinkled under her grip.
I hadn’t taken my hand away. My palm stayed perfectly still against that heated strip of fabric between her thighs, teasing pressure just enough to make her shake. Tick tick tick—like I had all the time in the world to ruin her.
“Say it again,” I said.
She blinked, glass lenses catching the flicker of fluorescent overheads. Her lips parted, but no sound came out at first—just breath. Shaky. Frustrated. Turned-on guilt. Finally, she swallowed and whispered, “I’m a good girl.”
I caught her chin between my fingers and made her look at me properly. “And good girls shouldn’t keep secrets,” I murmured, voice low. “So let’s try something else—while I’ve still got you all to myself down here.” I let the edges of a grin show. “It's time for your reward. What is it?”
She twitched the moment my arm slid around her shoulders—stiff as a board—but she didn’t resist. Not even when I brought her closer, pulling her flush against my side like we weren’t still in the dead-fucking-silent library.
My fingers skimmed from her collarbone down, slow and idle, until I could trace the shape of her breast through that thick, maroon fabric. I didn't grope. That wasn’t the point. I just circled, very gently, exactly where her nipple sat under the dress—and felt her breath stutter hard against my side.
Her whole body jolted like a live current had touched her.
She tried not to react. I felt her swallow it down, lips tightening, chest heaving very subtly as her eyes flicked forward, then down, then everywhere except at me. Her hands tightened on the scroll again. Useless defense. The tip of my finger circled again, this time a shade closer to the sensitive center.
“I said,” I murmured, just next to her ear, “what’s your reward, good girl?”
That pause said everything. She hesitated, muscles twitching under her coat, every ounce of her posture screaming shame and want tangled so deep they couldn’t untangle anymore. Then— slowly, painfully — she tilted her face toward mine.
And puckered her lips.
Ah. Cute.
She wanted a kiss.
I grinned. Didn't move.
Of course, but this wasn’t about intuition or generosity. It wasn’t enough to have her body trembling against mine — no, I needed her to admit to the hunger behind it. To choke on how much she needed me to give, even a little, even something that gentle. Because every time she said it out loud, she tied herself tighter. Became easier to pull apart next time.
“You okay?” So I blinked at her with mock confusion. “You choking or something? Weird face.”
Her mortification was instant. She scrunched in like she wanted to fold herself out of existence. But I kept looking at her, calm and expectant, like the only way out was forward.
Tully, the word, bastard, was not enough to define my shitiness.
Shiho flushed down to her collarbones. Her hips shifted against my side. The parchment scroll in her hands creaked. “…I want…” she started, voice barely sounding. She gritted her teeth. Breathed in. “I want a…kiss.”
It was such a small sentence. But coming out of her, right now, it landed like an earthquake.
I waited a beat, then gave her a slow, pleased smile.
“There we go,” I murmured, pressing my lips to hers.
Her lips met mine like she was afraid to breathe—soft and pliant, but trembling just beneath. Thin, yes, but full at the center, like her entire mouth had been shaped by that quiet urge to speak, to please, but always second-guessing itself. They pressed against mine with more uncertainty than confidence, but I felt it—how she melted. Her instinct was to give.
I only gave her a second of it.
Just when I felt her lean into it, breath hitching, I pulled away.
She blinked up at me in stunned confusion, lips just barely parted, still tingling in the cold air that rushed back between us. Her brows drew together, a little crease of confusion and then disappointment surfacing before she could catch it. And hell, I smiled.
“I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to ask,” I said easily, brushing a stray piece of hair from her cheek. “See? Not that scary.”
I watched her squirm with that, and not just from embarrassment. It wasn’t just the kiss she wanted — had been wanting. It was me. And she wouldn’t say it. Never had. Not even once.
Still, even after I fucked her. Real and raw and closed-door honest. After all I’d shown her, after the two months I’d given her, not once did she come.
Not once did she reach.
Bit disappointed, honestly. Too much to expect, I guess. Even after all that, she just… kept her distance.
I leaned in, looked her right in those twitching, dark-lashed eyes, and said, “You want more?”
She froze again. Nodded twice. Fast. Her awkward version of admitting yes.
Again, I didn’t move.
I just raised one brow, waiting.
And after one long beat, she swallowed. “...I-I want more,” she whispered, voice cracking just at the edge of it.
Content, I nodded. Tapped her between the legs twice—light drumming with my fingers still warm from where I’d been teasing her. She tensed at each one.
But instead of stroking, instead of giving her what I knew she was aching for, I pulled back.
And reached for the scroll, her protective barrier, clutched tight in her hands.
She hesitated. Gripped it tighter like maybe it could anchor her. But I pried her fingers loose, slow, and with a certain authority that didn't leave room for argument.
The second it left her hands, she looked smaller somehow.
I turned and shoved the scroll into the nearest shelf, not even glancing at the code etched along the side, not caring if it was the right one.
With a fluid motion, I let the arm around her shoulders drop and placed one hand firmly on her hip. She didn’t even get time to wonder before I pushed her gently against the shelf we’d just retrieved the scroll from. The quiet thud of her back meeting cold wood was practically a gasp in the silence.
She sucked in a startled breath, blinking up at me like a cornered animal unsure if this was danger or something worse — safety.
I smiled and let my fingers rise to trace the curve of her cheek. Her skin was warm there, almost fever-hot. She stiffened slightly under that intimate gesture, but didn’t flinch. Her breath stuttered again, lashes fluttering down before she forced herself to meet my eyes.
I held her gaze, watching how her whole body was screaming to retreat... even as her soul leaned in.
Then, slowly, I brought my fingers to the side of her face and slipped her ridiculous glasses off.
A tiny jolt went through her. And then she broke.
Her shoulders collapsed inward, eyes going wide, hands lifting instinctively as if to cover herself. This was different. This wasn’t playful embarrassment or flustered tension. This was exposure. Removing those glasses was like pulling back a veil she’d lived behind her entire life.
It hit her harder than any teasing or touch before.
She looked stripped.
I took a breath and, finally, got to see the whole of her.
Her eyes…. Large, storm-grey with rings of violet near the center, always half-hidden behind lenses and lowered lids. They weren’t just beautiful, they were honest. Raw. Eyes that had seen too much and hidden too long.
I reached past her and set the glasses gently on the shelf—unceremoniously, upside down, like they didn’t matter anymore.
Her hands hovered uselessly between us for a second. Then dropped.
“Hey, hey,” I murmured, tilting her chin. “It’s okay. You’re alright.”
I brought both hands to her face. She didn’t try to stop me. She was not that brave. Just froze there. Let me hold her. Her body trembled the way something small does in a predator’s shadow—not with fear anymore, but with that animal instinct of being claimed. Like a shy forest creature caught between a flight impulse and sheer helpless trust.
A spooked rabbit.
No — a fawn. Fragile. Silent. And never more still than right before it allowed itself to be touched.
I leaned in slowly, watching her breath hitch, those wild-violet eyes flick to my mouth, then back to mine.
Then I kissed her.
The second my mouth touched hers, I didn't ask — I took.
There was no teasing, no gentle ease. I kissed her the way she needed to be kissed, the way I knew she'd imagined but never had the courage to request.
It was searing and rough, all heat and hunger, my lips crashing into hers with full possession. I tilted her head in my palms, angling her for more, deeper. She shuddered beneath me, her entire body tipping into the kiss like a storm-battered tree leaning into the only still point it could find.
My tongue demanded entrance and found it. She parted her lips for me not with hesitation, but with muscle memory, like her body remembered what her pride could never voice. She welcomed me in, passive but aching, allowing me to fill her mouth with mine, to steal breath and will alike.
I kissed her like she was mine because she was.
Her hands fluttered at her sides uselessly. Not sure what to do with them—where to put surrender, how to react to the fire surging inside her. But her mouth gave me that. From time to time, a soft, involuntary whimper escaped her throat — those breathy, barely-there sounds that betrayed more than moans ever could.
Desire, yes, but also need. Relief.
When I finally pulled away, ripping myself from her mouth more than easing off, she gasped. Her chest rose as she sucked in a desperate lungful of air she didn’t realize she’d been missing.
My little bookworm blinked, dazed. Her lips were swollen, red with kiss-marks, a little slick from where I'd devoured her. Her lashes fluttered, trying to reorient her dazed focus, and her mouth hung open, still parted like she was waiting for the next wave of heat to crash over her.
She looked — fuck — ruined, in the most delicate, exquisite way.
Her blush spread wildly across her cheeks, all the way to the tips of her ears, and even her neck. Her expression wasn’t quite lust, not quite overwhelmed. Lips trembling, eyes unfocused, mouth parted in a soft, dazed slack. Some combination of stunned and yearning, like a brain short-circuited by finally getting exactly what it had imagined in secret for too long.
And then — the most surprising part — she acted.
Her lips fluttered as she gently closed her eyes, lingered on the taste of me, nervously licking the bottom lip like she wanted to hold on to it. Then, tentative but unmistakable, she began pushing forward. Her forehead nudging against mine, mouth seeking another kiss like it had become the only solid truth in the room.
But I was still holding her face. I didn’t let her lean too far.
Realizing I wasn’t giving in, she hesitated. Then, barely audible, she mumbled something halting and characteristically awkward. "...W-well, I could, um... n-not object... if... maybe... you aimed again. At my mouth. With yours."
I blinked. "Is that your version of begging?"
She flushed even harder, eyes darting away. “I-it’s called suggesting enthusiastically…”
I couldn’t help the laugh. This was….. some progress I guess.
Shiho's face went pale, then flushed again, as she shrank in on herself, embarrassed. “I-I didn’t mean—I was just—never mind.”
But I shook my head, still smiling, brushing my thumbs gently against the trembling curve of her jaw. “No, wait, I’m not laughing at you.”
Her eyes flicked to mine, as if unsure whether to trust that, and I softened my voice even further.
“I’m just overwhelmed,” I said, letting each word land slowly and deliberately. “By your cuteness.”
That word — cuteness — acted on her like a lightning strike.
There it was again — that involuntary shiver, goosebumps lifting along her neck. Her eyes darted frantically like she was trying to escape, even while rooted in place by my hands. Her lips parted, but no sound came out—her mouth just worked around vowels where her voice had completely failed her.
And then she whispered, “…That’s not fair…”
I smiled, brushing her hair behind her ear. She looked away, cheeks ballooning with words she didn’t dare say. Still, her body tilting ever so slightly forward again, lips pink and parted, drunk off the residue of our last kiss.
I let a breath ghost over her cheek, my lips barely brushing her skin as I whispered at the corner of her mouth.
“If you’re really that… enthusiastically suggestive,” I said in a low hush, “I’m going to need proof.”
— — — — — — —
Author’s Note: Quick thanks to MannyValdez for the review — really appreciate the feedback.
They mentioned the story has a lot of introspection during the smut scenes, maybe a bit too much at times. It’s something I honestly hadn’t noticed while writing, so I wanted to ask you all:
Does the inner monologue work for you, or was it too much? Does it pull you out of the moment?
I tend to get wrapped up in character thoughts, so your input helps me keep the balance right. Let me know what you think.
