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On the first day of Sakura’s apprenticeship with Akasuna no Sasori, only the greatest expert on poisons in the world, she was late. It was the worst possible thing that could have happened – she’d made an absolute pest of herself until Tsunade-shishou had agreed to speak to the Kazekage to get Sasori-sama to take her on.
For years she had arrived at Team 7’s meeting point at the precise timing specified regardless of whether her sensei or teammates would be there. And now, on the first day of her much-coveted apprenticeship, she showed up late to meet a man who was particular to an extreme.
“You’re late,” he said coldly, as she hurried in, stammering apologies. “By six minutes and thirty-seven seconds.”
“I’m – I’m really sorry, Sasori-sama, I just got turned around trying to find your lab –”
“Working with poisons requires care. Deliberation. An ability to expect complications and obstacles,” he said, cutting her off. He wasn’t even looking at her – his eyes were trained on the violet liquid he was decanting from a test tube into a conical flask. “An attitude of assuming everything will go your way will not serve you well. Is that understood?”
Sakura nodded silently. Being told off by the mentor she so wanted to work with was not an auspicious beginning, but once he allowed her to start doing tasks for him, she’d prove herself. She knew she would.
“Good,” Sasori-sama said, returning his gaze to the conical flask, which he’d begun swirling over a low flame. “Keep that in mind. I will see you tomorrow. This time, try to show me your ability to plan ahead.”
Wait – what? Was he kicking her out?
“Sasori-sama,” she tried. “I really am sorry for being late –”
“Your feelings do not matter,” he said, cutting her off yet again. Sakura suddenly wondered if it was even worth it for her to try to learn from this man. He was utterly insufferable, and clearly thought his opinion was the only one that mattered. “If you poison someone you do not mean to, or if you merely paralyze someone you aim to kill, then all the intention in the world will do you no good. I work on a highly specific schedule, and I cannot take disruptions to my work. I have already communicated my expectations to you. Return tomorrow, and show me your ability to plan ahead. If you possess one, that is.”
Oh, that was it. Sakura had never backed down from a challenge before, and she sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. She’d show him her ‘ability to plan ahead’ alright.
The next day, Sakura was an entire hour early. She came armed with all her notes, and walked around the lab studying all the equipment, as well as scrutinizing the various ingredients he had laid out in various stages of preparation.
She also kept her chakra flowing at a steady rate, and her senses alert. After everything he’d said about preparation, Sasori-sama would never have left his lab unlocked for just anyone to enter. No, he was definitely around somewhere.
At the very instant that her watch indicated that it was 0900 hours, Sasori-sama suddenly stood before her, as if he’d appeared out of thin air. Sakura made a mental note to check for trap doors and hidden exits next time.
His scowl was just the slightest bit less pronounced than it had been the previous day. “I could have released a toxic gas into the lab,” he said by way of greeting.
Sakura decided to try being courageous. He seemed like the sort of person to appreciate it. And if he didn’t… well, she’d simply take it into account for next time. It had taken her one try to realize just how much he disliked tardiness, after all.
“I doubt you would have,” she said, swallowing. Hoping that she was right, and that she was not already being slowly poisoned. “I noticed yesterday that this place doesn’t get very good ventilation.” The place had actually been positively stifling, a fact that Sakura, out of breath and cooking in her own sweat, had not appreciated one bit. “I don’t think that you’d mess with your workstation that way when you can’t easily get rid of it.”
He cocked an eyebrow, and she realized that his face showed very few signs of his age. He was at least twenty years her senior, wasn’t he? He looked more as if he was only twenty, like her.
“I could have simply taken an antidote. Assuming that I had rigged this lab, I would have had ample time to prepare a sufficient supply for myself.”
Sakura opened her mouth, wildly grasping for some, any, rebuttal – anything that would explain why he still wouldn’t have poisoned the air supply – but she closed it again as she realized that to speak anything that came to her mind would be dishonest. She was there to learn, not to show off how smart she was. She hadn’t considered that he might have an antidote handy, and it was best that she admitted it.
“Then I really hope you haven’t actually poisoned the lab, because that didn’t occur to me at all,” she said, bowing her head.
He grunted and turned away, but not before his lips quirked up for a fraction of a second. Sakura’s shoulders sagged, and she finally felt as if she could breathe again.
It turned out that Sasori-sama didn’t so much as teach, as expect Sakura to figure out what he was doing and keep up. As she followed him around the lab like a lost puppy, he turned and levelled a glare so ferocious that she couldn’t help but take a step back. The killing intent rising from his aura seemed a mite like overkill, though.
“Use your skills of observation,” he said coldly. “If you have any, that is. I was given to expect that your master has actually taught you something of substance. If you expect me to hold your hand every step of the way, you may as well turn back and return to Konoha now.”
Sakura wanted nothing more than to give him a punch on the face and show him exactly what she’d learned from her master. But in the name of inter-village cooperation, she resisted.
It was a close call, though.
She continued to watch as he moved with confidence through the lab. There was not a single wasted movement – every minute motion had a purpose, whether it was reaching for an ingredient or a precise swirl of a flask.
So caught up was she in watching his dance that she barely noticed exactly what it was that he was doing until a pinprick of pain lanced up her arm. Glancing down, she saw a senbon poking out of her shoulder. Shit.
“Now, you have actual motivation to learn to observe instead of simply gawking like a foolish girl,” he said, eyes glinting. “You have two hours before you are overtaken by the effects of the poison. The lab is at your disposal.”
And if you die, good riddance hung in the air between them, unspoken. Sakura could feel her heart pounding as if it was going to explode any moment – was that the poison, or was it just her panic? She had no idea. She’d thought Tsunade-shishou had just been exaggerating when she’d hugged Sakura and said she hoped to see her alive and well again.
Think, Sakura, think! He’d said she needed to learn observational skills. So this had to be a puzzle with a solution. Unless he was a sadist and was going to enjoy watching her flail about in search of a solution before watching her die a most painful death. But he wouldn’t do that to the Fifth Hokage’s apprentice.
Probably.
She forced her breathing to slow, calming herself. Panic would achieve nothing – in fact, it would only speed her heart rate, spreading the poison faster through her bloodstream –
Blood.
She had plenty of information, she realized. She knew that swallowing an emetic to purge the poison wouldn’t work since it had entered through her bloodstream. She could use the jutsu Shishou had taught her to extract poison from the blood, but assuming that she was even able to perform it one-handed, it would still feel like admitting defeat.
But she had a viable last resort, at least.
She frowned as she realized that Sasori had not moved. She wasn’t going to use the honorific to think of him anymore, she decided mulishly. Not after he’d poisoned her.
Damn it, she had to focus. But it was so hard, and she felt like her head was stuffed full of cotton. Hold on. Difficulties with concentration. Could that be an effect of the poison? He could have used a neurotoxin. She’d have to pay attention to the way she felt. It could give her hints.
He still hadn’t moved. She walked towards him, looking at what lay on the counter before him. It was some kind of… spider? He’d injected the toxin into her, she realized. That meant… it was likelier to be an animal venom rather than a plant-based poison. Right?
No, wait, that wasn’t right. Animals could be poisonous too.
Her thoughts were already so hazy. She couldn’t follow them. It was a neurotoxin, whatever it was. How the hell was she supposed to find the answer when she didn’t know the first thing about desert poisons? Anything he used would probably be of Suna origin.
The bastard wasn’t even looking at her. His eyes were fixed on –
Wait. He was looking at a cabinet. Sakura dragged herself over to it, realizing that her toes and the tips of her fingers were beginning to feel numb. Peripheral neuropathy. This was so unfair. This test was rigged. How was she supposed to find her antidote when both her thoughts and limbs were affected?
She wrenched the cabinet open. There was a single vial there – jackpot. She uncorked it with trembling fingers, and was about to drink it.
But then – the toxin had been injected into her. It didn’t make sense for her to ingest the antidote. Absorption through that route took hours, and Sasori said that she only had two. How long had passed? What if her time was already up?
It occurred to her then. How could she trust anything that came out of his mouth? How could she even trust that this very vial was the antidote?
She was an idiot. Putting the vial aside, she pulled a kunai out of her pouch and made a shallow cut on her palm. She watched the blood well with fascination, before shaking herself and spilling some onto a clean section of counter. She normally would have gotten a petri dish, but she couldn’t care less about hygiene at this point – she’d smear his entire damned lab with her blood. It was the least he deserved.
She focused her chakra onto the blood sample as Shizune-senpai had taught her, scanning for the components present. It was hard. She was so dizzy. Her eyes widened, and she started laughing. It wasn’t actually fatal. It was just a paralytic. She would live. She wasn’t going to die a virgin.
“You’re such a bastard,” she managed to get out before everything went black.
She blinked, waiting for the world to come into focus. Everything was so blurry, except for those two swirls of colour. They were… amber. “So pretty,” she sighed. She wanted to touch them. She reached out a hand, gasping at the effort – it felt as if she was trying to lift a mountain with her pinky finger.
Her hand touched skin. It was so warm, and so smooth. “Mmm,” she sighed.
There was a warmth at the back of her neck, and a feeling of pressure, and then everything went black again.
“I hate him,” Sakura growled, throwing back her cup. It was probably a bad idea to consume alcohol after she’d been poisoned just hours earlier, but she needed the sake.
Temari laughed. “Yeah, Sasori-sama’s a… character. No one can control him – he just does whatever he wants. Rumour goes that he’s only even still in Suna because of his grandmother.”
“That’s too bad,” Sakura muttered.
Temari let out another bark of laughter. “Should I remind you that there’s nothing actually keeping you here? You could leave.”
“But if I did, I’d be admitting defeat,” Sakura said, burying her head in her arms. Ugh. He’d really poisoned her. And then he’d knocked her out again. Honestly. She’d been out of it; she hadn’t meant to touch his face.
She groaned again. She had a type, and it was the sort of man who practically had signs all around him screaming “BAD NEWS”. And this one was twenty years older than her to boot. He was forty! She had no business thinking about touching his extremely pretty face again.
She heard Temari’s glass clink against the table, and wearily lifted her head to see her arching a perfect eyebrow. “You’re the one who had Tsunade-sama persuade the Kazekage to pressure Sasori-sama into taking an apprentice,” Temari pointed out. “Don’t tell me you did that without knowing about his reputation.”
“I’d heard he was particular. I didn’t think he was a total psychopath!” Granted, Sakura had heard that he tended to take his eccentricities to extremes, but that had just convinced her that he’d be precise in his work. Had just inflated her daydreams of being mentored by the most brilliant ninja in the world where poisons were concerned.
She hadn’t expected him to actually bare his sharp edge to her. Why would she have? She was utterly shameless about the fact that she’d always been a teacher’s pet, capable of charming all her instructors with her good behaviour, her compliance, and her ability to complete whatever task they’d set for her.
But what did she have to do to win over a mentor who didn’t give her any instruction whatsoever? Who expected her to read his mind and magically figure out what he wanted?
She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t. She should just drop this whole idea, return to Konoha, and tell Shizune she’d be content with learning about poisons that were commonly found there.
Temari snorted, breaking into her thoughts. “Psychopath’s an understatement,” she said. “The Third Kazekage mysteriously disappeared, and Sasori-sama wasn’t in Suna at the same time either. Plenty of people think Sasori-sama had something to do with it. He wasn’t a fan of the Third.”
“What?” Sakura gasped. Was she really apprenticing with a Kage-killer? “And he’s still walking around doing as he pleases?”
Temari shrugged. “There’s no proof,” she said. “And besides, from what I hear from Father, the Third was a huge asshole, and it was really no loss to Suna. But then, he’d say that, of course, since it allowed him to get the Kage hat.”
Sakura shook her head slowly. Shishou had warned her, but experiencing it for herself was jarring. Suna’s regime wasn’t as brutal as the Bloody Mist era of Kiri, certainly, but there was a decided vibe that if you couldn’t defend yourself, you had no business being alive. A product of a culture that developed in a treacherous climate like the desert, she supposed.
She would show them, and Sasori too. She’d show them she wasn’t some soft rainforest child that could only survive in a climate and culture of abundance.
She’d show them what a disciple of the sannin Tsunade had to offer.
There was a system to how Sasori did things, Sakura was beginning to realize. He had days where he prepared his poisons, and days where he investigated them, and he appeared to have a standard flow of work for each.
The first time she handed him a vial before he could grab it himself, he paused. His amber eyes bore into her with an intensity that sent shivers down her spine, before his lips quirked upwards in the barest hint at a smile. It was the closest she’d ever gotten to receiving his approval in the past three weeks.
The sight of it arrested her, and she found herself continuing to grip the flask at the point where the narrow mouth widened into a sphere. Sasori’s hands on the mouth of the flask seemed far too near. If she flicked her fingers upwards just a little bit, she’d touch his skin –
Damn it, she had to focus.
“Do you plan on letting go of the flask anytime soon, or do you expect me to play tug-of-war with you for it?” Sasori asked in the same sardonic tone he’d used on her since the day she had stepped into his lab. But she could have sworn that it lacked its usual bite.
Sheepishly, she released it, and watched as he began heating the flask, swirling it slowly as fumes rose from it. “Treating the Desert Thorn Apple requires care,” he began, and Sakura felt a thrill shoot through her. Finally, finally, he was actually teaching her! “Heating the sap can remove the excess moisture and make it more concentrated, more potent. But the boiling point of the toxin is very close to that of water. You should also be aware that evaporation begins long before a liquid reaches its boiling point. So if you heat it for too long, you will begin inhaling the poison molecules, and you may bid farewell to any aspirations of living a long, useless life of stupidity.”
Sakura thought that was a little unfair, but she supposed she could see it from his perspective – carelessness would get you killed when you worked with poisons. That was probably why he’d forced her to prove her ability to think and observe before he’d ever begun giving her knowledge, which would be fatal in the hands of somebody without those skills.
A goofy smile spread on her face as Sasori switched off the heat and put the glass down. He did care.
Suddenly, she felt her legs begin moving in jerky movements of their own accord, following him as he walked briskly to a cabinet on the other side of the room. She tried to stop, but found she could not. His fingers curled, and her body stopped moving. She remembered, then, that Sasori had risen to fame not because of his capability with poisons, but his ability to use them in conjunction with puppets.
What was he –
Her arms jerked and pulled a different vial out of the cabinet, this one full of a clear liquid. Her mouth opened and her head leaned back, and she found herself pouring it down her throat. It smelled vaguely of cinnamon, though she knew Sasori would not be so kind as to feed her something so harmless.
“A half dose should be sufficient, I believe,” he said, and the vial was placed onto the counter.
Finally, her limbs slackened, and she could move of her own free will again. And move she did, palms pressed against the counter as she waited for the effects of this poison to overtake her.
“You clearly have not learned your lesson about remaining focused,” he said coldly. “If you cannot learn the easy way, you will learn the hard way. You have 90 minutes.”
Her stomach churned. Her hand instinctively reached for her pouch, where she had stored an emetic, but she hesitated. She would not earn Sasori’s respect that way, and she found that she wanted it very badly indeed.
Thankfully, this time, the toxin he had forced her to ingest had not affected her cognitive functions – she could still think at least. She would need to figure out what she had ingested. Cinnamon, she thought wildly. It had smelled of cinnamon. There had been an acridity to it as well, as if one of the ingredients had been burned –
She knew what poison required burning as part of its preparation process.
Sakura dashed over to the other side of the lab – what was with this man and storing the complementary antidotes on the opposite end of the lab from his poisons – and picked up a jar of dried berries. Nightshade was a poison in its own right, but in this case, it was the lesser of two evils, for she would require a far larger dose before it became toxic. And now, she needed it for its anti-spasmodic and anti-inflammatory properties.
She chewed on the berries, regarding him thoughtfully. He’d given her an easy one this time. As she swallowed, the sweet taste of evading death once more sliding down her throat, she decided to just ask. What was the worst he could do? Refuse to answer?
“Was the cinnamon smell from a different poison? Am I going to think I’m safe, only to die later?” she asked, trying to keep herself steady. The nightshade berries would counteract the worst of the effects from the ashes of the knollbird feathers, but she would continue to experience tremors for a few hours yet.
“It was to mask the taste of the knollbird ashes,” he replied. “It is far too distinctive, and nightshade is a well-known antidote to it.”
Sakura nodded, and he went on. “If you wish to be anything more than a glorified delivery girl, you will need to think about how you will use your poisons in combat. In situations of high stress, you will need to deflect and redirect attention to where you wish it to go.” His keen eyes fixed on her, and she felt as if her heartbeat had become louder, pounding a staccato. His undivided attention was the most unnerving thing she had ever experienced. “The cinnamon scent in that was strong. I did not expect you to be able to detect the taste of the ashes underneath.”
She felt so light-headed then, giddy, as if she could dance with joy. She’d exceeded his expectations. She was a teacher’s pet once again, and looking at him, knowing he approved of her, she could not help the thought that she would not mind being another sort of pet for him as well.
Thankfully, she managed to bite her tongue to keep herself from speaking. Just the poison, she thought, trying to get her breathing, and so her heartbeat, to slow. Just the poison, and the adrenaline. That’s all. That’s why I’m feeling this way.
As the weeks continued to pass, and Sakura continued to nurse a most inappropriate fascination with her mentor, she began to wonder if she could turn the tables on him. Poison him instead.
She just didn’t know how she was going to do it. He was caution personified – he never ate or drank anything without testing it first, even if he had prepared it himself and it had never left his sight. Gaseous delivery was a no-go, since it would get her too, and forget about trying to inject it directly into his bloodstream – she’d be lucky if he didn’t snap her neck and call it a day.
When the idea finally struck her, she could have laughed. Yes. That would work. And she’d be killing two birds with one stone, too. Ino would be so proud of her.
The next morning, she decided to put her plan into action. She was playing with fire and she knew it, but she was a woman consumed. All that existed in her mind was that she wanted Sasori to look at her – not even as a student he was proud of, but as an equal.
And for that, she would need traps within traps, as he enjoyed setting. She still remembered well the first test he’d set for her – the poison he’d injected into her bloodstream hadn’t been fatal at all. No, it was the second vial – the one he’d led her to by virtue of his gaze – that had the potential to kill her.
His entire lab was a series of traps as well. Any intruder could walk right in, since there was only a single flimsy lock on the door. But once they entered, the very layout of the lab – from the items that would draw their attention, to the placement of the various ingredients – that would get them good. They would end up engineering their own demise.
But today, the trap would be for him.
She easily picked the lock and walked in, familiar enough with the lab at this point to avoid the major traps. He’d wanted her to learn to observe, and she’d been a model student. Enough so that she could trigger the final trap – the one that would paralyze the victim until Sasori was good and ready to come interrogate them – with purposeful determination.
As she felt her legs go numb and she collapsed to the ground, she sincerely hoped that this wouldn’t backfire on her. That she wouldn’t end up being sent back to Konoha in disgrace.
The flare of Sasori’s killing intent was different from that of other shinobi. Most others expelled their rage in a blazing bonfire, and while it was effective enough, an experienced enough shinobi could become desensitized enough to the sensation that they could disregard the pinpricks of fear that were a natural product of it.
Sasori’s, however, was caustic. It was ice-cold and slow-moving, and did not trigger a shinobi’s automatic defence mechanisms until it had already corroded their courage. As Sakura felt it eat away at her will, she wished her muscles worked so she could bolt back into the past and tell herself that this was a horrible, no-good, monumentally stupid idea. She realized in that moment that Sasori had never actually intended for her demise on the previous occasions when he had poisoned her.
But this time, with all signs pointing to her betrayal, he just might.
The slow clack of his footsteps echoed around the room, each one a countdown to the final moments of her life. They finally paused as his shadow fell upon her, and she felt the weight of his disappointment fall upon her.
“You should never have turned against me,” he said coldly, and if her muscles worked, she could have flinched. God, she’d been so stupid. Had she really thought Sasori – emotionless, calculating Sasori – had grown fond enough of her that he’d administer aid to her before admonishing her? “I do not blame you for the effort, certainly, but you should have known that I was too far ahead of you.”
Oh, that was the last straw. Sakura felt her own hackles rise, and her chakra flare in response. She hadn’t succumbed to his trap because she’d been careless, she’d done so on purpose because she was a fucking idiot.
She felt her body jerk into a standing position, and walk backwards until she was plastered against a bare patch of wall. She’d always wondered why the lab, which was utilized every inch of space to its maximum, had left this little corner empty. Well, now she knew. His chakra strings tugged at her, fixing her in a spread-eagle position, emphasizing just how helpless she was.
And even in the midst of her fear, she felt heat pooling in her belly. What was wrong with her?
A trapdoor opened in the floor, and a puppet scuttled out. It… appeared to be some sort of insect, from what she could tell. It smeared some paste across her throat as Sasori watched, waiting expectantly.
“One of my more ingenious ideas, I believe,” he said, in that same cool tenor he always used when he was telling her about some aspect of poison work or another. Was he still teaching her? “Typically, antidotes need to be administered through the same means by which the poison was absorbed. But it does seem rather redundant to go to all the effort to paralyze an intruder, only to undo it. Yet, it does seem necessary to release at least some of the paralysis in order to get the truth out of them. And so, this, to target specific regions of the muscular system for release.”
Shit. It wouldn’t work – she’d used a sealant to close up all her pores. It was to protect her skin from the dreamspin she’d then proceeded to spread liberally over her body, especially the points she thought he was likely to examine – her neck, and her wrist. The antidote wasn’t going to be absorbed at all, and he was going to think she was being uncooperative on purpose.
“Speak,” he said, after a pause that stretched for an eternity. “Who put you up to robbing me? I know you wouldn’t have acted on your own initiative. You’re not that stupid. Was it the Kazekage? Your Hokage? Or was it my grandmother?”
Sakura felt a little sad for him, then. Did he really think his own grandmother would get a kunoichi from another village to steal from him?
“No answer?” he asked. “Very well. You will find that I am a patient man. I am more than willing to wait for you to realize that your intransigence will not serve you.”
He pulled up a chair, and sat to wait.
It felt like hours had passed, but Sasori showed no signs of flagging. Of course he wouldn’t, Sakura thought resentfully. He had a nice, comfortable chair to sit in. It was her throat that was parched, her arms and legs that were burning from holding the same position for as long as she had.
He stood up, slowly invading her space. He drew a finger across her dry lips, and Sakura would have shivered if she could.
“You’re thirsty,” Sasori said in a deceptively pleasant voice. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Just tell me why you decided to rob me, and I will provide you with water.”
And Sakura tried. Oh, how she tried. But the poison he’d rigged the trap with was too potent, and she could not move a muscle.
Sasori clicked his tongue. “No? That doesn’t appeal to you?”
He was so near her, and she could smell him – he smelled of herbs, and of the oil he used to lacquer his puppets. The position she was in, the wooziness she felt, the sound of his voice – all of it was just doing things to her.
The next thing she knew, her arm jerked out of its position, and her hand was between her legs, rubbing ferociously. “If that thirst does not motivate you to speak, we will simply have to try a different sort of thirst, hmmm?”
Fuck, she couldn’t lie – this was hot. Really hot. In that moment, it didn’t even matter that he was twice her age, far ahead of her in every possible way, that he was probably going to kill her before the day was done. All that existed was his intense stare, and that he was manipulating her limbs to make her feel good.
He pulled out a kunai and sliced through her shorts. Her hand tugged her panties aside, and began stroking her clit with dextrous movements. He was so skilled at this. She’d had boyfriends who couldn’t even stimulate it properly when they were using their own fingers. But Sasori, manipulating her with chakra strings, was managing to use make her feel so good. The dampness pooled between her legs, and when she heard a splash of her fluids hit the floor, she thought she was going to die of embarrassment.
He laughed, a cruel, mocking, thing that sliced her to the bone. “You could have this in truth, if you just told – me – who,” he whispered.
How big of an idiot did he think she was? Even if she really had been trying to steal his poisons, even if she really had been shielding someone, she wouldn’t have believed that at all.
She felt herself rising towards her apex, a spring tightening in her belly with every pass of her fingertips against her clit. He just needed to keep – talking – just the low, smooth, cadence of his voice was doing so much – just a little more –
Her arm slammed back into the wall just before she could reach her peak, and tears gathered in her eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He was next to her again, speaking directly into her ear. “Did you really think I’d let you cum when you’ve been such a foolish, traitorous girl? I’ve taught you so much of what I know, and this is how you choose to repay me?”
His tongue darted out to lick her ear, and it sent jolts of electricity through her. It ached, not being able to move. “You’ve always been such a good pupil for me. Learning everything so quickly, always being punctual after that first day, never saying utterly inane or stupid things –” He released a harsh gasp then, and his body was pressing against hers, and she could feel his hard length against her belly.
“It’s such an easy thing to do. Just tell me who,” he whispered.
If only she could! But her throat remained closed, and all she could do was stare piteously at Sasori. She’d been cautious with all the wrong things, she thought bitterly.
“Come on, Sakura,” he murmured, and the sound of her name on his lips set her heart fluttering. It was the first time he’d ever addressed her by name, and she wished it was in any other circumstance but this. “Do you think I haven’t seen the pathetic way in which you look at me? How long can you really hold out on this foolish resistance?”
His arousal pressed even more firmly against her then, his hands clenching around her waist so hard she was sure he was going to leave bruises. He pressed kisses to the line of her jaw, goosebumps erupting wherever his lips made contact.
“Tell – me – who,” he repeated in between the kisses he was trailing down her jaw, and then down her neck. Oh thank the gods, he was finally going to touch her neck –
Just a flick of his hand, and the zipper on her vest slid open, revealing her to him. His eyes smouldered as he regarded her chest, before he returned his lips to her neck. He kissed her now-exposed pulse point, licking and sucking with fervour. Thank goodness. That was where she’d smeared the dreamspin most liberally, it was only a matter of time now –
His hands crept up her waist, setting off sparks along the exposed skin. Her bindings, too, began unwinding themselves without any apparent motion from him. Gods, the very thought of his puppet jutsu was so sexy – she could imagine him slowly stripping her of her clothing from across the room, his eyes regarding her with cool amusement as he tormented her with the slow slide of cotton – or no, even better, silk – across her skin.
But more than that fantasy, the here and now – of his hands and lips on her overheated skin, of fire burning both within and without – was far better. Nothing could compare.
“Tell me,” he whispered again as he pulled away from her neck, his callused fingertips brushing lightly against her now-exposed nipples. “Just give me a name, Sakura. That’s all I need.”
The dreamspin was taking effect, she realized, looking at his glazed eyes. It was an herbal concoction that was given to shinobi who had trouble sleeping. It helped relax their muscles and their minds, releasing the grip that their nightmares had on their slumber.
Now, it would unleash the true Sasori – the person he was under the carefully controlled façade.
His eyes bored into hers as his hands continued to caress her breasts. “I know what you want from me,” he breathed. “Every time you looked at me with that pitiful expression, as if you were just begging for me to bend you over every counter in this lab. I wanted to oblige you. Make you into a pretty little doll like I know you could be.”
His mouth closed around her nipple then, suckling. She wanted to scream his name, beg him for more, but she was frozen.
He looked up at her. “Scream for me, Sakura,” he said, his cool voice roughened by desire. “Tell me how much you have wanted this.”
Sasori, she wanted to say. To cry his name, beg him to just take her. But that – damned – paralytic –
He seemed to realize it in that instant. He pulled back from her, and assessed her with a keen gaze. She could practically see the gears turning in his mind. That she had only triggered this specific trap, that she had not sweated at all, despite how hot it was, that she hadn’t said a single word, that he was being too free with his own words and actions –
He laughed. “Foolish girl. You coated your skin in dreamspin, didn’t you? And a layer of sealant below it, I assume. Blink twice for yes.”
She complied.
“And the purpose of this entire endeavour – no, you didn’t actually intend to steal from me, did you? You just wanted my attention.”
She blinked twice again, and his smirk widened.
“I could release you,” he said. His fingers moved between her legs, cupping her sex, and she could believe that she somehow was even more aroused. “But you deserve to be punished. For breaking into my lab, and for dosing me with dreamspin, of all the things. And for being such a dirty girl that you’re already so wet and dripping for me.”
His lips crashed against hers, then, and her arms wrapped themselves around his neck with a furious intensity. All it took was slight twists of his wrists, small waves of his fingers, and her hands had unlaced his pants – graceful in their movements in a way that they never were when it was Sakura’s brain that was in control.
He moved to sit, and Sakura followed, still very much under the control of his chakra strings. You would have thought he was watching a stage show from the way he sat, lounging casually with his legs open. It was Sakura that looked like a needy slut in this circumstance – hands running up and down his chest, lips kissing his neck as she grabbed hold of his cock and sank down onto him.
His eyes burned with a manic delight as his hand twitched, and Sakura found herself rising and sinking, riding him at a torturously leisurely pace. His cock grazed her clit, and every sensitive nerve ending she had. She was going to explode. “I can tell you want to scream,” he taunted. “Maybe you want to go faster. You could have, if you’d been smart about your approach.”
How did he manage to sound so composed and unaffected? She wanted to rake her nails down his chest. Fuck her dumb idea anyway – she should have just thrown herself at him like her teenage self would have. The fire in her belly pooled and she could feel herself – about to – reach her apex – once again –
She stopped moving, suspended mere inches above his cock, and felt him spray his warm release all over her poor unfulfilled pussy. Another flick of his fingers, and she was collapsing against his chest, a boneless, spent ragdoll. That was twice that he’d brought her to the very edge, and jerked her back. That bastard, he was enjoying this.
“I think I rather like having you like this,” he said, his hands kneading her ass, and Sakura felt her blood run cold. “You like being my little fucktoy too, don’t you?”
She did, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be under his control forever.
He tipped his head back, looking far too pleased. There was neither mercy nor kindness to be found in the smile that he wore, and Sakura understood.
“Yes, doll,” he breathed. “You wanted my attention, and you got it. Now, we will play.”