He's impossible. He's impossible and he's an absolute pompous bastard and Yamu, against all good graces and slow-dwindling pride, can't let go of him.

Sharrkan moves against her like something sleek and leonine, his scent that of steel and lazy musk and something Yamu can only compare to sunlight. His mouth is softer than it should be, and warmer than Yamu expected, which both annoys and enthralls her as he sets slow kisses to the aching swells of her breasts. His knee is between her legs, rubbing and pressing and teasing, and she could very well bite him for it, nick her teeth into his flesh for how difficult he's making this, and simultaneously how good he is at it. Everything he does straddles the barrier between infuriating and wonderful, and as Yamu threads her trembling fingers into his hair and shudders at the hot sweep of his tongue, she can't tell which side of the barrier is making her shake this hard or flush this hot.

His heated gaze flutters up to meet hers, and the bastard smiles, little more than a crooked lilt at the corner of his mouth that makes Yamu's stomach jump. "If you could see what you look like now," he murmurs, "you'd never forgive yourself."

Yamu huffs out an irate breath and turns away to press her cheek to the pillow. "What an opportune time for you to get coy." She pretends not to notice how breathy her voice has become, and how her words shiver at the edges of their syllables.

"Take it as a compliment," Sharrkan says on a sigh of a laugh, one hand coming up to cup Yamu's breast, the touch strangely tender. When he rolls the pad of his thumb over her nipple, softly pulling at it between his fingertips, she almost forgets how to breathe. "You know, it's not like you to yield to someone like this."

"And it's not like you to be so gentle."

The remark was meant to come out as an insult, and yet it drifts from Yamu's lips much quieter, embarrassing in its honesty, and even Sharrkan has to good sense to look surprised. Their eyes meet for a moment, Yamu's fingers still weaved into the silver mess of his hair, her body still feverish and shaking beneath his, before Sharrkan is lowering his head and kissing every part of her that his lips haven't touched yet. The muscles of her stomach twitch beneath his every touch, and her hips lift on their own accord when his hands curl around her thighs to ease them apart. There's a split second in which something very much like anxious need pierces through her when she sees how he looks at her now, how his eyes remain fixed on hers even as he leans in and draws his tongue hot and slow against that warm, aching space; it's then that Yamu can't bear to look at him, everything too much, too close, too good to even be real. She's writhing, grabbing at his shoulders to keep him in place between her shuddering thighs as she moves against his tongue, then against the easy slide of his finger inside of her that curls and strokes in such a way that it's all she can do to gasp for air in between broken pleas of his name.

Just moments later, everything comes crashing down upon her in the most perfect of ways, and she realizes, deliriously, how simple it would be to say those three words, how effortlessly they would flow straight from her lips to his ears. But Sharrkan is resting his chin atop her stomach now, looking up at her with that lazy smile and those lidded eyes, and it's like he just knows.

Either infuriating or wonderful – she still can't quite decide.