Summary: He wants her closer, he wants all of her, then and now. MugenxFuu.

xx

Hair down and cheeks red from the warm water and steam hanging thickly in the air, she sits reclined in the bath, arms outstretched along the sides of the wooden tub and eyes lightly closed. She doesn't react when the door scrapes open and someone else enters, knowing that it's a public bath and thinking that it's probably just another woman, come to cleanse herself if only for a moment or two.

Then:

"Just pretend like I'm not even here."

And she shrieks like a wild animal, eyes jerking open in an instant as she splashes water over the sides and plunges down into the water all the way up to her lower eyelashes.

She desperately wishes the wathcloth she has clutched in her hands is bigger than it really is.

"Mugen, you asshole," She'd throw a shoe at him if she thought she could reach it. "Get out!"

"Relax," He replies lazily, and she notices for the first time that he's not wearing a shirt,"you ain't got nothing I haven't seen before."

"Just because you've seen other people, doesn't mean you can walk in here and see me. Now, beat it."

"Your naked body is not worth seeing," He says over his shoulder while moving to sit on a wooden stool, back muscles flexing while he reaches to grab a cloth and bucket, "I'm staying."

She scoffs at the comment, having heard it all before, and slides over to the edge of the tub, pressing her body into the wood frame. Her arms drip with water as she lets them rest on the side and all she can do is scowl at him, wishing he'd wipe that smug, self-satisfied grin off his stupid face.

Instead, she just huffs loudly and mutters, "How would you know," in a caustic, aggravated tone while boring holes with her vision into the side of his face.

"I wouldn't." He turns to her and grins, and suddenly she feels like he can see her - all of her - through the dark wooden base of the bathtub, "but I could."

"What you could do," She begins hotly, hugging the side of the tub tighter to herself with every word, "is leave. Because, frankly, well--I don't think you would be able to handle it even if you did see it."

And then she pointedly looks in another direction, her heart pounding in synch with the words "Oh God, oh God," that begin to reverberate loudly within the walls of her head. Because he's suddenly looking at her from across the room, just like that night, when it was the two of them, him and her, talking about the exact same thing. Except then, she wasn't sitting naked in a public bath house and he wasn't sitting feet away, shirtless with suds of soap clinging to his neck and chest.

"You don't think I'd be able to handle it." From where he sits on the wooden stool, Mugen looks at her with the dryest expression, his voice deadpan and unbelieving. He drops the cloth to the stone floor and moves to stand, raising an eyebrow in her direction.

She swallows, keeping her eyes on him, not saying one word. Because, really, she'd like to be able to shut him up just once--just once--and prove that, despite the fact that her breasts may be smaller than the women he usually lies with, she's still just that. A woman. A living, breathing, female human being that he'd be begging to get his hands on if he could. If she'd let him.

"I know you couldn't." Her chest heaves against the wall of the bathtub and she sucks in a deep breath of air.

And all too suddenly, he starts looking away from her face to the curving line of her neck and shoulders. He stares for a few moments, and she lets him, until their eyes meet and she lets a confident smile roll over her lips at the sight of him looking flustered.

He takes a step, then another, and another, until he's within touching distance of her, able to reach out and slide his fingers across her skin if he wanted to.

"Prove it." Is his growling demand, and she tries desperately to keep herself from shivering, hands spreading out against the wood as her breathing quickens.

"Make me."

Shit, he thinks.

And like a shot, his blood runs south and all he can think about -- all he can see -- is that look in her eye.

That demanding, temptuous, terrified-yet-exhilarated, completely sexual look in her eye, and he realizes all too late, that she was absolutely right.

When he cups the back of her neck and fully presses his mouth on hers two seconds later, water wetting the front of his pants when it spills over the side of the tub, she drags her hands over the skin of his back, deepening the kiss and pulling him closer. Then, he feels it, her breasts pressed full against his chest, and he groans deep in the back of his throat because he wants more.

He wants her closer, he wants all of her, then and now. So badly that he wastes no time in scooping her from the bathtub and all but laying her against the damp, stone floor, naked for him to see.

"Admit it," She says some time after, gasping, lying beneath him with her hair all wild and disheveled, pieces of it sticking to her neck. Her arms are sprawled by her sides and she looks up at him with both want and abandon, unable to stop herself from impulsively reaching out and pulling him downward, "It's worth it."

The smirk that blooms on his face is the only answer she gets as he hovers above her, ravaging her body with his eyes. He starts to smile when he looks back up at her, darkly and with purpose.

"I'm going to show you just how much."

It isn't long before he's burying himself inside of her, one stroke at a time, over the sound of her gasping out wants and demands, coupled with his name. His teeth continuously drag over the sensitive skin of her neck and collarbone, and he can't, for whatever reason, stop himself from compulsively licking the throbbing pulse in her neck. She keeps pulling him closer, and he keeps pushing closer, because even though they're skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, neither can seem to ever get close enough.

When they finish, it's together, in strangled cries, gasps, and moans.

And afterward, while he's whistling out of tune and washing her back, she feels more cleansed than she's ever felt.