Applying a little more pressure with the tips of her fingers, Kagome eased apart the slick, satiny petals that with every stuttering heartbeat steepled to conceal her. As the cool air scalded against her naked core, as her brother-in-law’s standing cock twitched and pearled, Kagome shivered, a raw and terrible desire wracking through her.

“Can you see it now, Sesshoumaru?” she demanded, low and fierce. “I want you to see it clearly. I want you to take a good, long look at what you’ll never have.”

Sesshoumaru’s features contorted with feral rage. Even through her barrier she could feel the dark, ravening heat of him.

“You mad bitch,” he seethed. Beneath the sudden stab of his claws, the whole surface of the table warped and splintered. “…I’ll fuck you bloody.”

Shortly, Kagome laughed, her expression twisting hatefully in turn. “In your dreams, you monster.”

Arcing her middle finger into her dripping core, she bit back a moan of pure primal gratification. Her own eagerness astounded her, but she refrained from leaning too deeply into the sensations that whorled and pulled like a vortex within her. In denying herself, she discovered an even greater satisfaction, empty though it was. Behind the mute gleam of her barrier, she remained suspended in this limbo of lust and denial, ensconced from him and from herself, untouched and un-touching.

Sesshoumaru had no such reservations. With one set of claws still lancing through the tabletop, he panted as he vigorously resumed his self-pleasure with the other. A part of Kagome wondered if he was hastening to put an end to it all, and she ground her teeth in sudden irritation, pulling her unmoving hand away. The first knuckle of her forefinger shimmered wetly, and Sesshoumaru growled, exasperated, as she tilted it this way and that, scrutinizing the evidence of her arousal with cool detachment.

“What do you want from me?” he asked of her, his normally rich and even tone now worn and frayed.

Kagome frowned, glancing away. “You’re always asking me that.”

“Because you never answer,” Sesshoumaru rasped, slowing his hand to no avail. “…Because you lie.”

Frowning still, Kagome sat up, snapping her knees shut as she banded her arms across her breasts. Instead of striking out at her like she’d expected, to her surprise, Sesshoumaru drew back from her instead. His fair skin was mottled red with desire, his markings darker than usual as the shadows played over every dip and edge of his chiseled physique. With hooded eyes, he regarded her, the expression in them so desperate, so sensual, that Kagome’s own expression faltered at the sight of it.

“You can curse me,” he said to her hoarsely. “You can strike me.” A shudder ran through him as the base of his cock began to swell. “You can humiliate me however you choose—just come to me, and let me finish you.”

The air stilled in Kagome’s lungs as she stared at him. Trembling in a paroxysm of fear and wonder, she breathed out, “There is something I want from you, after all…”

On her knees now, she leaned toward him, until only the faintest shimmer of her barrier separated them. Like a soap bubble it warped and filmed as her gleaming hand eased through its surface—and seized him by the jaw. Sesshoumaru’s eyes widened. Forcing a breath through her gritted teeth, Kagome shoved her damp finger through the crevice his healing fang had yet to fill.

“…I want you to suffer.”

Sesshoumaru choked as she rammed the heel of her hand against him. Blood gushed from her shredded skin, and he lapped it up just like she knew he would—even as he glared at her in furious disappointment. Even as his spine stiffened and his youki blazed and his end came upon him in a sharp, bitter rush.

Wrenching her torn finger from his mouth, she shook it off in a shower of red that splattered them both. As Sesshoumaru sank forward, Kagome slipped down from the table and stepped past him, shouldering into a robe. Breathing heavily, he followed her with glazed, wearied eyes, his knotted cock still pulsing languidly with cum—a gross perversion of the mating act that made her heady with disdain. It was this effusive contempt of hers that fixed him more firmly in place than any spell, as she stared him down in an ecstasy of judgment.

“I’m going to finish myself off—but not for you. Not in front of you either. You can sit there in your filth and listen to it, and know that it’s not for you.”

With that, she turned away from his kneeling form and stalked toward the door, his terse breath of derision drawing her short.

“It wasn’t pride.”

Glancing back at him, Kagome frowned. Chillingly, Sesshoumaru held her gaze, the tortured ghost of a smile haunting his features.

“I paid for you with blood.”

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi