Author: Rasengan22

Pairing(s): NaruSaku with implied NaruSasu

Rating: M for situations of an adult, sexual nature

Contains minor spoilers up to recent manga, but should take place much later than chapter 470, which I just read five minutes ago.

A steady but modest fire burned in the stone hearth of their small home in Konoha. It made their otherwise tiny, sparse living room feel inviting and relatively cozy. The kind of warm home Naruto never knew growing up, but maybe Sakura had. She, after all, was responsible for the decorating and furnishings. A single light coming from above the stove was turned on, and it bled in a lopsided rectangle over the aged wood flooring. Their moving shadows occasionally intercepted with it as the couple slow danced. Sakura’s head rested on Naruto’s shoulder, her shoulder-length pink hair tickling the skin of his arm. She had her arms loosely wrapped around his neck. They turned in unhurried circles, listening to a romantic song playing on the radio. Naruto’s hand traveled up, from the small of Sakura’s back, following the curve of her spine. As his fingers tangled with the hair at the nape of her neck, she released a contented sigh and raised her head to meet her boyfriend’s eyes.

Naruto smiled, winningly and appreciatively, genuinely happy at having Sakura in his arms. The crooked grin spread across his face until his eyes wrinkled in the corners. He pulled her in even closer and pressed his lips to her forehead, mouth brushing her hairline gently and allowing him a pleasant hint of her floral shampoo. The scent reminded him of Spring. Of new beginnings. Like their home, it reminded him of comfort. Things that were safe and just felt right, When they were together like this--so long as they were together--it felt as if the world was made up of nothing but good. It didn’t even bother him if occasionally his world revolved around more than thoughts pertaining to being a ninja during these troubled times. Or that Sakura was a ninja as well. That any day they could die and that he could lose her.

But he would never let that happen. Of all the people he’d lost in life so far, he wouldn’t ever let anything happen to Sakura.

“What are you thinking?”

Naruto stopped in his steps at the question, having not realized he’d been staring off and grinning at the ceiling. He grabbed her hand in his and held it above their heads, gesturing with his other hand for her to spin. She rolled her eyes but obliged, giving one unenthusiastic twirl before she was pressed to Naruto’s broad chest again. He relished the way her petite frame fit against him. She smelled of their home. As their bodies came into contact one of his eyebrows raised as his thoughts about Sakura wandered unashamedly to the gutter. He couldn’t help it.

“You,” he belatedly answered with a smirk, still musing as he affectionately pushed her hair behind an ear. “I’m always thinkin’ about you,” he breathed as he ducked his head, whispering his words to her neck, “Sakura…”

Naruto placed several open-mouthed kisses to her throat then moved to the smooth curve of her jaw. A now rosy cheek. The tip of her nose, which Sakura wrinkled. She glared at him in mock disdain and indignation, which only made Naruto chuckle delightedly. As the song came to its end, he hugged her to him. At first, it was just a simple embrace of contentment, but then his arms wrapped around her more tightly. He didn’t want to let go.

“Hmm…” She murmured the thoughtful noise against Naruto’s cheek.

Her breath so near and so close… Naruto pursed his lips together, rubbing the top lip over the bottom repeatedly in anticipation.

“You’re awfully affectionate tonight,” she said with a small smile, a curious glint in her gaze. With her fingers clasped together behind his back, she pressed his body to her. “Is there any particular reason?” She asked as a hand traveled playfully to Naruto’s hip. Her thumb skimmed underneath his shirt to slide against the exposed, darkly tanned skin.

Naruto growled a subtle warning into her ear at the intimate touch. Sakura laughed. But she didn’t stop the gentle touches that had now begun a delightfully tortuous journey from his stomach to the center of his chest.

“Tease,” he said gruffly, mouth near her ear.

The fire made a sharp crackling noise as a log shifted on the increasingly vanishing pile. Naruto studied the fire, watching the way it tried to lick against the stone wall, searching for an escape.

“I think we’ve gone far enough already that you should be beyond the point of considering me a tease…,” Sakura replied in a low, seductive voice that turned Naruto’s humble grin into something rather haughty and overconfident.

He nodded and kissed her left temple. “Every night I get with you where we can be alone is a special occasion,” he said sincerely, his hands moving to her shoulders. He separated them for the moment, and her hand fell from out of his shirt. She held his face in her hand, a thumb caressing the indentation of the two whisker marks on his right cheek. Naruto watched her watching her fingers as she touched him. He felt awed. To imagine that Sakura… his Sakura could stare at him this way. That anyone would. With love and adoration. Even when he'd been so reluctant at first to believe she felt the same way he did.

Sakura raised her eyes, hand still cupping his cheek.

“You’re getting sappy in your old age, Naruto,” she teased and tilted her head thoughtfully, causing a lone strand of hair to stick to her chin. He brushed it away. “Then again. You always were a bit of a sap, weren’t you?”

Naruto made a show of pouting as Sakura consolingly patted his chest.

“It’s true,” he conceded with an exaggerated sigh and threw his arms dramatically into the air. “That’s what they say: Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha’s No. 1 sap.”

“Shut up,” Sakura said between giggles as her eyes shown brightly with good humor and the light of the fire ignited their unique emerald hue. “Shut up,” she said again, holding on to her stomach as she laughed.

“So if I’m the No. 1 sap, and you’re still willing to date me… what does that make you?”

Naruto took her hands in his, squeezing them between both their bodies. Her palms were warm against his palms. Not sweaty. Just warm. Sakura’s hands seemed almost too small. But nothing about her was really all that fragile. He considered her an equal in strength amongst other things. Yet, holding her like this, he always had the strongest urge to protect her.

Forever.

Hold her close like this and never let her go.

But he supposed it wasn’t entirely realistic, and Sakura would never stand for him patronizing her like that.

“I wonder,” she hummed sarcastically, swinging their hands between their bodies as she distractedly glanced over in the direction of their kitchenette and the light above the stove. “Would that make me Konoha’s No. 1 sucker?” She shook her head in the negative as her nose scrunched adorably. “No, that’s not right…”

“Hey!” Naruto cried, sounding offended, but then his eyes narrowed mischievously as he waggled his eyebrows flirtatiously at her. “Wait. Exactly how do you mean that, eh, Sakura? No. 1 sucker?”

For a second, Sakura looked confused, but then her eyes opened wide, her cheeks burning red. She punched him hard in the shoulder. Naruto shuffled back a few paces at the impact, rubbing at his arm. He wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up with a bruise.

“Jerk,” she muttered at his crude joke, but she didn’t look that upset.

Naruto’s shoulders shook with his laughter. “It was supposed to be a compliment,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze in apology.

She rolled her eyes. “How would you know, huh?” Sakura pouted. “I’m fairly sure you were a virgin the first time we had sex.”

“Fairly sure?” Naruto repeated, an eyebrow lifting at what she was proposing. As he walked to the mantle above the fireplace to turn the radio off, he continued sweetly, “But I’ve only ever had eyes for you, Sakura-chan.”

“Uh huh,” she replied. “Idiot.”

She took a seat on the arm of their shabby blue sofa they’d been given as a housewarming present from Chouji’s parents. Sakura traced along the diamond pattern stitched into its fabric.

Casually Naruto turned to her and slipped his hands into the pockets of his black cargo pants, mocking glibly, “Do you doubt my virtue, Haruno-san? You’re so cute when you get jealous.”

She huffed at him and he came to her with an easy stride, making as if he’d pinch her puffed out cheeks. Stubbornly, she crossed her arms over her chest and her bottom lip stuck out enough for Naruto to realize maybe he’d gone too far with his teasing.

“I’m not jealous,” she said. “But. If I ever hear you’ve been with some other girl in this village before me… I’d…” She menacingly clenched her fists and shook one at him. Naruto stood beside her, studying the features of her face. She rarely wore makeup. He admired the thin arch of her eyebrows. Her button nose. Sakura’s lips… He wanted to kiss her.

So he did.

At first she pretended to still be mad, but as his lips touched hers and his hand moved to the back of her head, Sakura returned the kiss. Playfully, she nibbled on his lips. Then the kiss turned into something different. Something more deep. And needy. Desperate even.

Never coy with her affection, Sakura licked the inside corner of his mouth. Naruto smiled into their kiss. He waited as long as he could before parting his lips to meet her tongue. It wasn’t anything too frantic. He moved slowly, relishing her taste, and as she stood and wiggled as close as she could in order to be pressed against him, he felt the shape of her small, perky breasts against his chest. Mouths parted more widely, pieces of tongue flashed as they melted into one another. Fringe from Naruto’s bangs partially covered their faces. Sakura’s hair held fast behind her ears, most of it kept in place by a tied, silky green scarf Ino had given to her on her last birthday. Sakura wound her arms around Naruto’s neck. She stood on tiptoe. The hand Naruto had on Sakura’s shoulder slid lower. Along Sakura’s side, barely brushing her right breast, and finding its place on her hip, where his fingers curled in and aligned their lower bodies more completely.

It might’ve been fifteen minutes before they separated. Naruto continued to shower Sakura with soft kisses as she sighed and murmured his name, a palm pressed to Naruto’s chest as she took a seat on the sofa arm again. Eventually, having been satisfied by simply gazing at her for several minutes as he looked into her eyes, Naruto grabbed for Sakura’s hand. He swung it between them and then tugged her up from the couch. She smiled and allowed herself to be led away from the living room. The fire crackled snappishly in their wake as, with a smile, Naruto towed her rather eagerly down their narrow hallway and toward their shared bedroom, Sakura’s hand warm and wanted in his own.

Wrapped in her arms, Naruto had never felt so good. He nuzzled Sakura’s neck, smelling that sweet perfume. Her skin was warm, burning his and so soft everywhere he touched. Her naked thigh, her flat stomach, her breast. It drove him mad to be so close to her. Yet, somehow it still wasn’t enough. Sometimes it scared him how insane it drove him. If he wasn’t afraid of being too rough with her, freaking her out, he would want Sakura in every way he possibly could. He longed to be greedy, barely tapping into the primal urge as his fingers grazed over her everywhere as she pushed up against him, the small whimpers escaping her parted mouth exciting him further.

He slid a hand between her legs, playfully and gently parting them, squeezing a thigh briefly. He brushed his hand over a mound of light pink pubic hair. With the tip of his finger, Naruto nudged her, tracing the already wet and swollen lips. Sakura’s hips shifted up again, restless. Naruto chuckled deeply, now nuzzling against her collarbone, memorizing the fresh and clean scent of the soap still clinging to her skin from a shower she’d taken a few hours ago.

“It’s not like you to tease,” Sakura murmured. Her hands rubbed over his back and shoulder blades comfortingly, massaging them as he sighed and maneuvered between her legs.

Naruto smiled, releasing a puff of air that fanned his bangs out of his eyes. Sakura tenderly moved them aside for him, placing a kiss to his jaw. She wrapped her legs around his waist, locking her ankles. He felt the heels kick against the lower part of his back.

Before sleeping with Sakura, Naruto never would have imagined that women could be so casual in bed. He didn’t have much to compare it, too, but he had always thought females would be more submissive. He was surprised, really. But pleasantly so. Sakura knew what she liked and what she didn’t, so she had no problem directing him. That was the kind of intimacy they shared. She was a bit more sensitive than he, so when he offered constructive criticism, he had to be very careful about his wording.

“Are you in a hurry?” he murmured throatily as he nibbled at the base of her neck. He grabbed hold of the back of her thigh, fingers finding the soft spot of skin behind her knee and tickling it. She squirmed underneath him, slapping his arm.

“Does it matter if I am or not?” She asked, forcing an innocent expression Naruto didn’t buy for a second. “After all, you’ll be done in sixty seconds or less.”

Naruto scoffed, lowering his head as he nipped at her collarbone and at the top of her breast. He set his eyes upon the nipple. It was pert and pink. Naruto raised his eyes, meeting Sakura’s heavy lidded ones. Her chest heaved underneath his weight. Purposely, he blew against it, his hot breath meeting her already flushed skin. Her legs tightened around him even more. Eyes on her, Naruto licked the tip, swirling his tongue around it before closing his lips. As he sucked, her back arched sharply and she let out a gasp. Naruto’s hand moved from the back of her knee to her hip, holding it. His thumb brushed along her hipbone and across her stomach.

Naruto smirked as he lifted his head. “Do you… have anything else you’d like to say or have I rendered you speechless?”

Sakura let out a long, deep sigh. The moonlight streamed through the curtain, creating shadows along the length of her slender, athletic body. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders and then she wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him to her. For a split second, Naruto felt confused as Sakura didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

“Sakura?” he asked, trying to escape from the embrace to see her face, but she wouldn’t let him go. He could feel and hear her breath against his ear. It raised the hair at the back of his neck.

“Don’t you ever think it feels wrong to be this… happy?” She asked him in a soft, insecure voice.

Naruto frowned, finally able to shift and push Sakura away by the shoulders. He looked into her eyes, searching.

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused. “Isn’t it good to be happy?”

“Yes,” she said, averting her eyes to the window. She bit her lip, hands sliding from Naruto’s shoulders to press her palms against his chest. Naruto lifted himself up on his elbows, and the sheet that covered the lower half of their bodies slid down, exposing the muscular globes of his buttocks.

“Sakura,” he pushed. He kissed the side of her face, at the apple of her cheek. He left another lingering kiss at her jaw.

She sighed again, shifting underneath him. “Don’t you ever feel… guilty?” Her eyelashes fluttered and she seemed uncomfortable at her admittance, putting Naruto further on edge. He narrowed his eyes, expression serious.

“Why should either of us feel guilty?” he asked, raising an eyebrow along with his voice, heartbeat increasing, wondering where all this was headed.

“Because…” She started and looked off. Her fingers curled as they pressed against the upper part of his stomach. The blunt nails against his skin distracted him. A slight breeze blew through the window at that moment, jostling the sheer lavender curtain that had been pushed to the side.

“Because?” he asked, growing impatient. “Because of what? It’s not like you to hide stuff from me. You can tell me anything…”

“Can I?” she asked, eyes sharply meeting his, almost accusing in their intensity.

He searched her face in earnest. “Of course,” he said, the corners of his mouth tugging downward into a frown.

“Then… do you ever…think about Sasuke anymore?”

Naruto’s breath hitched and something painful and cold and heavy filled up his chest, like a balloon near bursting.

“Don’t get mad,” Sakura appeased quickly, cupping Naruto’s face. He tried to move away, but she held him there. “You said I could talk to you about anything.”

“Well,” Naruto grunted. “Anything but that.” He turned his head away from her, looking dejectedly at the other side of the room where the light from the window didn’t reach. “Plus… this isn’t exactly the best time to bring that up…”

“Naruto,” she said his name, pleading.

He knew he was being partly irrational but he couldn’t help the feelings that name evoked. Sasuke. Sasuke who had joined Akatsuki and found new team members. Sasuke who had become an enemy of the entire ninja world, causing other people so much pain, attacking the other shinobi nation leaders. Naruto had crawled on hands and knees and begged for Sasuke’s well-being. But what had any of that been worth? Even after Madara had been taken down, Sasuke had refused their help. Refused to come home.

Refused Naruto.

“Hey,” she called to him, touching his cheek. She stroked his left eyebrow as he sulked. “I didn’t mean anything by it… I guess I was just… curious.”

“It’s fine, Sakura-chan.”

“Sakura-chan?” She mused. “You’re angry. You only add that now when you’re irritated with me.”

Naruto sighed, lowering his head until he rested it in between Sakura’s breasts. She ran her fingers through his hair, caressing him. He listened to the sound of her heartbeat, letting it settle him. Relax him.

“Maybe I could suggest something, but you have to promise not to get mad,” she whispered.

Naruto didn’t respond. He shut his eyes, letting his body rise and fall with her breaths, listening to the sound of the wind, and the creaks that came with living in an old house.

After a minute of quiet, Naruto spoke. “Okay,” he said stiffly, “What is it?”

“Promise not to get mad,” she said, still threading her fingers through his hair.

He nodded, eyes shut tight, just wanting the pain that came from that name to ebb and die out. “I promise.”

“I want to have sex,” she said resolutely, turning her nose up in the air snottily.

The audacity of her tone caused Naruto to bark out a laugh. “We were on our way to that, weren’t we?”

“Yes…” Sakura replied, thoughtful. “I… want you to trust me though. I want you to try something. I think… I think it’ll be good for both of us.” She tugged gingerly at one of the longer fringes of his hair that framed the left side of his face.

“Oh? Now you’re not only a kunoichi, a medical nin, but now you’re a… therapist?”

“Naruto,” she shushed him. “I’m being serious!”

“I can tell,” he relented and raised his head. “So what’s the catch?”

Sakura’s mouth was set in a thin line, her green eyes narrowed at him. She grabbed hold of his biceps as if afraid he’d move away, leave her. He had the instinct to shake her off, but this was Sakura. He would not run away from her.

“What is it you want, Sakura?” he asked in a low, resigned voice.

Her lips parted. She hesitated but then licked her lips, lids lowering half way. She ran her hands up and down Naruto’s sides, his hips, then to his butt. She squeezed him there, and the passion he’d felt earlier stirred in its place against her thigh.

“I want you inside me,” she said quietly, the words causing a blush of embarrassment on her cheeks. Needless to say, it excited him all the more. Automatically, he lowered his body against hers, hand absently brushing the inside of her thigh. She was wet there. He moved his hand up further, cupping her. She moaned and as he slid a finger inside, her arms went around him, constricting him. She rocked against his hand as he slid in a second finger, rotating his wrist and wiggling the digits. Sakura buried her face against Naruto’s neck, panting heavily.

“So is that all you wanted,” Naruto asked, breathing ragged and voice scratchy as he continued fingering her. “Why was that so hard to ask for?”

Sakura squeezed her breast, breath harsh and clipped. “Ah… that’s not… just what I wanted…”

“Hm?” he asked, dipping his head and brushing his nose against her throat. He nibbled at her earlobe.

“Naruto,” she whimpered. “Inside…”

He paused, biting the lobe again. Then ever so slowly, he slid his tongue along the shell of her ear. “Ask for it,” he said, knowing the effect his voice had by the way Sakura suddenly became even more damp.

Sakura mewled, tossing her head from one side to the other, her hair covering part of her face as strands stuck to her lips. With his other hand, Naruto moved them aside, sloppily kissing the corner of her mouth. Sakura tilted her head, touching her tongue to his just as Naruto removed his fingers. Without any delicacy, he wiped his hand on his thigh. He reached under her left knee and lifted her leg while raising his weight with his other arm. Sakura scooted down, wiggling underneath him more as Naruto grabbed hold of himself and pressed forward and into that warm, wet, welcoming entrance that seemed to suck him in as if this was where he belonged.

Naruto groaned with restraint as she locked her legs around him and, achingly slow, he began to thrust his hips, Sakura easily meeting the movements. Naruto listened attentively to the sounds Sakura made, loving the whimpers and the moans, liking it best at the times she would cry out and dig her heels into him. Then the nails would come, biting down into his back as if she were a cat in heat. Their lips met as he moved inside her, that void inside him momentarily filled. The deepest, darkest, loneliest parts of him nearing some kind of urgent satisfaction that was profoundly needed. It’s what pulled him forward. Deeper. It tugged at him, drawing him in until he became completely lost in the sensation until fingers yanked sharply at his hair.

“Naruto,” Sakura gasped, body flush and hot to the touch as their hands roamed all over each other. “There’s… something…”

“Mm?” He pressed his mouth to her breast, licking at the gentle curve of it.

“Are you… close…,” she panted. “Close to…?”

“Y-yeah,” he said, lifting her leg even higher, sliding in further. She moaned and bit down on her lip, eyes shut.

“I want… yes,” she interrupted herself as Naruto angled himself differently. He felt her hand against his stomach as it slid between their bodies. He felt the back of her fingers brush his lower stomach as she sought to rub her clit. The added bit of stimulation to his penis urged him to move faster.

“When you,” she tried to speak. “I want you to say… ah,” she squeezed his arm hard enough to cause him pain, “When you come, Naruto… I want you to… say…”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked in a stern, low tone, biting down on her breast.

“Say his name,” she said in one breath.

Naruto stopped moving.

“What?” he asked, feeling sick with shock.

“Don’t stop.” She squeezed around him. “Just trust me. Naruto, please. Just do this… for me. For us.”

“I don’t… I don’t think so, Sakura. I can’t. There’s no way. Why?”

Naruto felt disgusted. Sakura’s expression was filled with desperation.

“Only this once, and I’ll never ask you again, but you… have held this tension for so long… I don’t… I’ll never understand that bond you shared with him. What it meant. Sometimes I’m so jealous of it I could scream, but God. You rejected me at first... And I have you now. Like this. You love me… I love you, but sometimes I wonder… if he would’ve… returned when we went after him… would you…?”

“Shut up,” Naruto growled ferociously, punching the mattress, just to the right of Sakura’s shoulder. A spark of kyuubi chakra made his skin tingle, but he repressed it.

Sakura froze, but she didn’t betray herself. She looked him fiercely, stubbornly in the eye.

“Please,” she said firmly, stroking his back. Her hips moved against his though he remained still, thinking. Her mouth sucked at his shoulder, bit at him. A hand roamed over his ass, squeezing, massaging, pushing him.

After some time, though quietly, Naruto moved, focusing on nothing but the heat, the need. The request clung to the back of his skull, distant and close at the same time, goading him and mocking him. Sakura said no more, only whimpered, moaned, appreciated as if giving him space, permission to back out at any second. But he couldn’t back out on his word. He said he’d do anything.

Naruto let loose his frustration on her, the pace of his jerky movements increasing as his orgasm loomed closer on the horizon, warming the pit of his stomach and setting his body on fire. It wasn’t his most graceful moment as he pushed Sakura down, gripping her shoulders as she cried out, his hips pounding into her as if she wasn’t Sakura any longer but some faceless woman, some random fuck he didn’t have to hold himself back with. It gripped him hard as Sakura’s hands went around his neck, their bodies slick and sticky as they ground against each other. Naruto bit at the spot between neck and shoulder, then again at her throat, whimpering as his climax stalked him down, threatened to break him. Just before, just at the peak, an image of calm, dark, assessing eyes assaulted him. Mocking him. Pale skin, black hair. A smirk.

Fuck.

Here it came.

Muscles aching and eyes stinging, Naruto exploded inside Sakura, moaning and panting into her neck as the name rolled out of him in anguish, in passion, in everything he’d been holding in for years. The tension. All of it. Everything.

“Sasuke,” Naruto cried out in grief against Sakura’s skin, shaking as he came violently.

Sakura was quiet, still, pulsing around him as she held a trembling Naruto tight, lips to his shoulder. They quivered against his skin, and Naruto broke as he moved his head away from her and buried his face into the pillow. The tears came, spilling out, wetting the pillowcase as the fingers in his hair attempted to soothe him. The whispers in his ear made no sense to him, formed no words. He could only clutch on to the warm body in his bed, begging to be anchored there or else lost forever, the sound of that name echoing inside his head, promising to never let Naruto forget. Not ever. And reminding him, mocking him, scorning him that deep down he’d never want to. That he was helpless. That he’d rather die than forget what that name meant to him.

So, out of frustration, he wept.