Chapter Text
“Am I pretty?”
She turns and smiles up at the young woman who posed the question. She is taller by half a head, with elegant black hair that hangs loose halfway down her back. Unusually pale blue eyes meet hers, and the bloodred lips beneath them curve into a hopeful smile. “Oh!” she says, high and sweet. “Yes, you’re very pretty.”
The woman reaches up to her face and peels something away.
She gasps with shock as part of her face lifts away to reveal another, with the same light eyes and aquiline nose – and deep, bleeding gashes from mouth to cheek. “Oh – oh! Oba-san, you need to go to a hospital! Let me call an ambulance for you.” She reaches inside her purse for her cellphone.
Instead of thanking her, the woman asks, “Am I pretty now?”
“W-well. No, just now you need medical attention,” she prevaricates.
The slit-mouthed woman laughs, high and amused. In the half-darkness of dusk, she raises her blade and swings.
A high scream of shock and pain fills the air, and dark blood sprays.
“What’ve we got?”
“Inoue Orihime, twenty-four. Sliced open, cut nearly in half. There’s no weapon.” Kurosaki Ichigo pulls down the face mask he’s wearing and takes a long, deep breath before pulling it back up. “Dead three hours, maybe? The blood’s not fresh. Whoever did it gave her a Glasgow Smile, too.”
Kuchiki Rukia tugs her own mask up over her nose – it does little to block out the odor but at least it hides her expression of disgust – and squats down beside the body of the unfortunate victim. With a practiced eye she examines the torn-open torso, blood pooled beneath it and organs spilling out. Their victim voided both bladder and bowels when she died, and gut wounds always stink.
Poor girl. “It looks like the spine probably stopped the murderer from cutting her clean in half,” she observes. She straightens up and looks over at her partner. “You think it’s our kuchisake-onna?”
He grunts. “Fits the profile,” Ichigo acknowledges. “Can you get a trace on her this time?”
Rukia palms a device in her jacket pocket and pulls it out, scanning it over their victim. “Yes. She was sloppy.” A dark, nondescript black van pulls up and two men hop out of the back. Rukia pulls the mask off her face. “Kira, Hisagi,” she says in greeting. “Our victim’s a human. Get her back to headquarters and learn what you can, then clean her up and leave the body someplace she’ll be found. She probably has friends who miss her.”
“K-kuchiki-sama,” Hisagi says breathlessly, cheeks reddened.
Rukia swears under her breath and reels her power back in. She hasn’t fed in a while – her allure must be leaking out again. She casts a sidelong glance at Ichigo, whose eyebrows are drawn together; he’s probably scowling under the mask. “Make sure you clean up all the blood,” she orders. “We have a kuchisake-onna to catch.”
Their shoulders brush as they walk back to his car and almost against her will Rukia relaxes, his strength trickling into her. Ichigo gets in on his side, digging in the glove compartment – modified to keep anything in it chilled – before he finds what he’s looking for while Rukia is still buckling up. Ichigo rips off his mask, punctures the bag of blood with his fang, and sticks a straw in the hole before he puts the car in gear and steers with one hand while the other holds up the bag. “So?”
Rukia drops her own mask on the dash and makes a face. “Like I said, she was sloppy. I got a signature on her, due northwest.”
Ichigo glances at her out of the corner of his eye while he sips from the bag. “You alright? You look a little… hungry.”
“I’m fine, just drink your blood-flavored capri sun and drive.”
His expression darkens but he doesn’t press the issue. “Northwest it is, then.” He finishes off the bag and shoves it back into the glove box, straw and all. “Poor kid,” he says, referring to their victim. “Probably has a family who’s missing her.”
“Kira and Hisagi will make sure she’s found before too long.” Rukia glances out the window as Ichigo takes a left turn onto the highway. “They’ll clean her up and make it look less like she was ripped in half, too.”
The kuchisake-onna isn’t hard to find; she’s fast, but modern cars – especially magically enhanced ones – are faster, and anyway like Rukia told Kira and Hisagi, she’s gotten sloppy.
They find her in the next town over. “My turn to play bait,” Rukia mutters as Ichigo pulls over to the side of the road and puts the car in park. It’s nearly midnight but it’s a Friday, and there’s plenty of noise coming from the late-night restaurants and bars on the main drag.
He catches at her before she can open the door, hand heavy and firm on her shoulder. It sends a sweet, warm wash of energy through her: like curling up in a blanket with a lover who wants to take his time. “Don’t take risks,” Ichigo orders, unaware of what just the touch of his hand is doing to her.
“Tch. I’ll be fine.” But Rukia doesn’t shake off his hand, not until their target is in sight. She hasn’t felt this good all week. With a low sigh she shifts: Her sensible blouse and trousers become a pretty, black dress with an open back. Long black hair cascades down her back, artfully tousled and loose. Her curves shift, hips slimming and bust filling out the dress. “How do I look?”
Ichigo glances away. “Hurry up before she finds another victim,” he says gruffly. “I don’t want to chase her down a second time.”
She doesn’t let him see the way her shoulders fall before she straightens up and throws the car door open, stepping onto the pavement in sky-high heels that give her taller form an extra six centimeters in height. Rukia closes the door as quietly as she can and tousles her hair again.
Ichigo hates that she’s a shapeshifter; every time she changes he gets huffy, especially when she changes her face. He’s never said anything, but he doesn’t have to. “So close-minded for a vampire,” she mumbles under her breath.
The dark-haired monster is stalking another victim by the time Rukia gets to her. Two, in fact: a couple of salarymen stumbling out of the late-night diner on the corner, more than a little drunk as they call their goodnights to the diner’s other patrons. One slides the door shut behind them and then they walk, arm-in-arm on the sidewalk past other restaurants and shops closed for the night, straight toward Rukia’s target.
Even in heels, Rukia’s faster. She hears them whistle as she passes them, knows they’re looking at the long legs beneath her short dress. A flick of her hair and a little expenditure of power – just a very little – has them turning left at the corner, away from the kuchisake-onna. She’s standing on one of the old-fashioned stone bridges over the river, pale pink kimono fluttering in the breeze.
“Do you think I’m pretty?”
Rukia’s lips curve in a smile. Ichigo is behind their target, just meters away. Fresh from feeding, he’s even faster than she is, and must have looped around by way of the footbridge half a kilometer down. “Do you think I’m pretty?” she asks in turn, and when the monster pauses, caught off-guard by the unusual response, she strikes.
“At least the paperwork on this one’s easy,” he remarks when they’re back in front of headquarters.
Rukia tucks a lock of chin-length hair behind her ear. “Speak for yourself.”
“Hn. You didn’t have to use your allure on those two drunk guys when they turned back up the street.” Ichigo parks and shoves his door open, unfolding himself from the leather bucket car seat. His shaggy bright hair is practically a beacon this late at night, attracting the moonlight overhead. His black duster sways as he opens the back door and grabs the arm of their quarry, cuffed with power-suppressants and strangely docile. “Out you go.”
“I suppose I could have let her kill one of them instead,” she says with an eyeroll as she shuts the door on her side. The fancy dress is a polished black skirt suit, but she’s put her body back to normal and Ichigo isn’t trying to avoid looking at her as they march up the stairs and into the squat, nondescript building that serves as the headquarters for the Gotei 13.
Rukia keeps a hand on her weapon as they take the rickety elevator down, below the basement and sub-basement, and another level besides that. The doors open and Ichigo pushes the kuchisake-onna ahead of them. “Got another one for you, Renji,” she calls.
An office door pops open and a tall blond man in disheveled jinbei and a worn striped hat pops his head out. “Ah, Kuchiki-san, Kurosaki-san!” he greets cheerfully. “Hisagi said you had a lead on our victim’s killer.”
“Hey, Urahara. Yeah, she wasn’t hard to catch. Too bad we couldn’t get her before that girl got killed, though.” Ichigo bares his fangs when the monstrous woman snarls at him, the wound on one cheek opening wide and revealing teeth beneath the split-open flesh. “Renji!”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” a voice calls. There’s a jingle of keys and the tall, crimson-haired man emerges from around the corner in a ludicrous pair of bell-bottom jeans and a shirt that looks like it wouldn’t be out of place at the original Woodstock. “Oh, hey Rukia.” His voice softens considerably.
Beside her, Ichigo stiffens. The kuchisake-onna cackles. “Before I’m old,” Rukia mutters, annoyed with all of them.
Renji takes custody of their prisoner with another soft look at Rukia. “Some of the guys are going to that new late-night club later, Rukia; you wanna come with?”
Before Rukia can answer, Ichigo’s herding her towards their desks. “We have a lot of paperwork,” he says over his shoulder.
“You don’t have to be so rude,” she huffs at him, but his arm is around her shoulders, warm even through the fabric of her blazer and his duster, and Rukia can’t bring herself to shake him off. It feels too good to have him touch her like this. She breathes in, and his energy flows into her. There’s an extra spring in her step until he pulls away and sits down at the desk next to hers.
Not that Ichigo even knows what he does for her. If he did, he’d probably ask to be assigned another partner. He can’t stand her shapeshifting – imagine what he’d do if he knew she was feeding off him.
She boots up her computer and jiggles the cord connecting the monitor to the desktop when it doesn’t light up right away. “Damned thing,” Rukia swears under her breath.
“Monitor still acting up?” Ichigo asks. When she looks up again, he’s wearing reading glasses, rectangular frames and thin lenses doing nothing to disguise the warm brown of his eyes. Her heart thumps in her chest and Rukia swallows against a suddenly-dry throat. “Rukia?”
“Yeah,” she finally says. On the other side of the row of desks Renji and Hisagi stop dead to stare at her, beads of drool forming at the corners of their lips. Their attention does nothing for her. It used to; proximity alone used to feed her.
“Hey, knock it off,” Ichigo growls, startling them out of their stupor. And of course he’s totally immune to her, doesn’t react at all the way the other two men do.
“Not our fault she’s a succubus,” Hisagi grumbles back, cheeks flushed as he swipes a hand at the corner of his mouth. “Are you two coming out tonight or not?”
“Not. Too much paperwork.” Ichigo’s expression softens when he turns back to Rukia, and he takes in the suddenly sullen set to her mouth. “Unless you need to…?”
“I don’t.” She turns back to her computer and boots up the software Urahara insists they use for filing cases. It looks like something out of the early aughts and functions like something out of the nineties, but eventually Rukia opens the case file Ichigo has already started and fills in her part, recording a bare-bones description of the two men she used her allure on, as well as the single-use memory device she used to make them forget what they saw of her standoff with the kuchisake-onna.
There’s other paperwork after that: a backlog from the last week of case notes about the manic pixie in Chofu, the toilet ghost in Karakura, and the elf who couldn’t handle his liquor and orchestrated a flash mob in the middle of Shibuya Crossing.
It’s around four in the morning when Ichigo gets up and stretches, the crack of his back sharp in the quiet of the bullpen. “I need to get home before sunrise,” he says, already more sluggish than he was earlier. “Want a ride?”
She looks up, bleary-eyed, and wills herself not to blush. Ichigo tends to scrub his hands through his hair while he works, and just now, between the readers he has yet to remove and the mussed-up hair, he looks… well. Rakish. “Sure.” She reaches for the purse she keeps stashed at her desk and slings it over one shoulder.
The car ride is quiet and fast; they’re not the only car on the road so early in the morning, but it’s close. Rukia could count on one hand the other cars they pass on the way back to her apartment. The sun is just starting to think about rising when Ichigo pulls up in front of her high-rise building, a thin line of pale light on the far horizon. “Can you make it home alright?” she asks as she unbuckles her seatbelt.
“Che. Yeah, I’m only another ten minutes away,” Ichigo promises.
Rukia reaches over and squeezes his hand over the gear shift, eyes fluttering shut at the spill of energy that fills her. “Sleep well, then,” she says, and holds back her wince when Ichigo’s hand twitches away. “Sorry.”
His expression is unreadable in the darkness. “Don’t worry about it. Get some rest; I’ll see you after sundown.”
“Yeah,” she agrees, and opens the car door. She doesn’t look back, but she doesn’t hear his engine pull away until the front door of her building closes behind her.
Ichigo swears under his breath as he eases his car back onto the road. Every time she touches him, he wants… His hand clenches and opens convulsively on the steering wheel. “Fuck off, you’re not her type,” he mutters to himself as he steers his car towards home. Rukia’s never shown an ounce of interest in him; whomever she’s feeding on – and he doesn’t know, he’s never seen her do more than give someone a hug – it can’t be someone who looks like him.
He yawns enormously and swears under his breath at the prickle of pain in his eyes; despite the bag of blood from earlier he’s already squinting in the light from the sun that’s just barely starting to lighten the sky. He needs to get home, where it’s safe. And dark.
Ichigo parks his car in the garage under his building and hurries into his apartment. The blackout curtains are all shut tight when he steps inside and flips on a single table lamp. He doesn’t need much light to see; one of the perks of being a vampire is that he gets to save on electricity unless he has company that can’t see in the dark. Not that he’s had company since he started working for Urahara. At least, not of the living kind. His sisters drop by sometimes, but the same vampire that nearly killed his father and sired him turned his sisters too.
That vampire only realized his mistake when Ichigo, still feral from the change, tore his throat out.
He slips off his shoes and pulls his wallet from his back pocket, dropping both it and his keys on the small glass table in the genkan. He fed earlier, so Ichigo doesn’t bother with another bag of blood; just strips out of his clothes, drops them in the hamper in the corner, and pulls on a pair of thin gray sleep pants. He checks the door to make sure it’s bolted, drops his phone on his nightstand after he flips the light back off, and falls into bed.
Unlike the old stories about vampires, his bed doesn’t resemble a coffin even a little bit; it’s generously sized and has a beige, fabric-covered headboard. Just like the old stories, once Ichigo falls asleep he’s basically dead to the world. He has enough time to pull the heavy blue duvet cover up to his shoulders and get comfortable on the vee-shaped pillow – a gift from Karin, who promised it would solve his neck pain as a side-sleeper – before he’s out, body unnaturally still on the mattress.
When he wakes hours later with the sunset, it’s to his phone already buzzing against the nightstand. Fae on the loose in Karakura, the text from Rukia reads. I’m on the way there. Meet me after you wake up. There’s an address in the text, and Ichigo scrubs a hand over his face.
Just woke up. ETA 20, he types back. He hauls himself out of bed and scrubs up in the shower, brushing his teeth at the same time. He runs a hand through his hair to neaten it and pulls on clean trousers and a shirt; a blood bag from his fridge is breakfast enough and Ichigo shoves it into the pocket of his duster on his way out the door.
He drinks on the go, GPS giving him directions to the address Rukia sent through.
There’s going to be a lot of paperwork for this one, and a lot of memory modification; Ichigo can tell as soon as he stops the car. There’s a toddler sobbing on the sidewalk near his car, but when he opens the door her cries sound like a donkey’s calls, which is no surprise since she has the head of a donkey. Her mother is – Ichigo crouches down and checks her pulse, sighing with relief – unconscious next to her. There’s another body just a few more meters away.
Ichigo’s throat tightens. It’s Rukia. Even disguised, with longer hair and a taller body, he knows, he knows it’s her. He stumbles his way over to her and falls to his knees beside her just as she rouses herself, pupils dilated and one side of her face already starting to bruise. “What the hell happened?” he demands as he helps her sit up and holds himself back from hauling her into his arms.
“Ugh.” She rubs a hand against her reddened cheek. “Fuck, that fae packs a punch,” Rukia mutters. It’s one of the few times he’s heard her swear.
“How many fingers am I holding up? What’s eight times fourteen?” Ichigo demands.
“Three, and 112.” Rukia huffs at him. “We need to catch that fae, he cursed that poor girl and her mother already. He either doesn’t speak Japanese or didn’t want to listen when I tried to detain him.”
“Maybe both.” He helps her up and looks away when she shifts again, the injury on her cheek disappearing as she changes her face. He hates when she wears someone else’s face, someone else’s body. When she isn’t Rukia. His Ru—
Not yours, remember? She’s just your coworker, the snide voice of his conscience reminds him.
“Yeah. Anyway, if he speaks English you’re on point.” She dusts herself off. “The toddler…”
Ichigo scowls. “I hate when kids get involved. I’ll call for backup, have Yuzu take her and her mother back to Urahara.” He’s already tapping Yuzu’s name on his phone’s screen. “Hey, Yuzu. Yeah, sorry, I know you just woke up. Me and Rukia have a situation…”
“This better be good,” Karin’s voice echoes from the background.
Yuzu – bless Yuzu – agrees immediately and Ichigo hangs up, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “What’s this fae look like?”
“Blond, taller than you, and with half a dozen tattoos,” Rukia says succinctly. “But if he can turn a toddler into a donkey he can probably shapeshift.”
“Alright. You stay with the kid until Yuzu gets here and I’ll go hunting,” Ichigo orders. “Ow!” he mutters when she kicks him in the shin. “Look, she’s a toddler and her mother’s unconscious. She could run into traffic.”
“So why do I have to do it?”
“Because I wasn’t just knocked unconscious, dumbass,” Ichigo shoots back, to cover up his lingering worry.
Rukia rolls her eyes and stalks past him. “Fine. But don’t take risks,” she orders. She sweeps the poor girl into her arms and onto one hip. “Shh, shh,” she murmurs. “I’ll keep you safe until your mum wakes up and someone comes to get you and her to safety.”
Ichigo’s breath catches in his throat at the sight of Rukia with a baby on her hip – even one with a donkey’s head – and he turns away. He needs to find the damned fae, he doesn’t have time to moon over something he can’t have. Especially not since it’s barely evening. They’ve gotten lucky – there’s no one out on the street just now, but he doubts it’ll stay that way for long.
He sets off after the fae, practically tasting the guy’s magic; it makes his back teeth ache. Ichigo can smell the magic on him, and he pulls his weapon from the holster at his hip, setting it to stun. If Rukia’s right and this fae is from another country, he doesn’t want to start an international incident. His whole body tenses as he rounds a corner and spots him, still blond and bigger than him. The fae turns his head just enough for Ichigo to see one of his eyes, emerald green and with pupils slitted like a snake’s. “Stop!” he calls, and repeats the order in English when the fae doesn’t respond. “You’re in violation of the ISBT, section three dash six.”
But either this fae doesn’t know about the International Supernatural Beings Treaty or he doesn’t care, because he takes off running. Ichigo curses under his breath and follows. His luck’s run out: there are plenty of civilians around, most of them ordinary humans, and they gawk and stare as Ichigo runs past them.
Ichigo’s already had a bag of blood this morning and vampires are fast when they’ve fed properly. He dodges a man with a bag of takeaway and a woman with a baby carriage, and calls one more time, “Stop!” before taking aim and firing.
The fae goes down like a rock, and Ichigo comes to a stop when he catches up, holstering his weapon. “Official business,” he says when a group of too-interested pedestrians gather nearby. He digs in his pocket for his badge and displays it for the looky-loos. “Stay back.”
There’s grumbling, but they do as he says while Ichigo unceremoniously hauls the fae to his feet. “Do you speak Japanese? English?” he demands as the bigger man’s head lolls on his shoulders.
“Tha fuck’s in that toy of yours?” he asks in accented English. He’s from somewhere in England; Ichigo can’t quite place what part of that faraway country. He sounds like he has cotton in his mouth.
“It’s a stun gun.” One of the pockets of his duster has suppression cuffs in them, and Ichigo slaps one onto the fae’s wrist. Despite the size difference Ichigo has no problem hauling him back to his car. Yuzu has arrived by the time he gets back, and the fae sneers when he sees the toddler still in Rukia’s arms. The girl’s mother is sitting up while Yuzu examines her, tears streaming down her face.
“Now, you’re going to reverse whatever you did to this little girl.” Ichigo gives the fae a little shake. “And then you’re going to come quietly so we can get you back to America.”
“Heh.” The fae snorts. “Kid shouldn’t have screamed like a banshee. That spell’ll wear off in a few hours.” He smirks down at Rukia. “You, though. Have fun – ow!”
Ichigo gives him another rough shake. “What did you do to her?” he demands.
“Tch. So touchy. She’ll find out soon enough,” the fae promises. The suppression cuff on his wrist vibrates and cracks, and he shoves Ichigo away from him before ripping a hole in the air. “Have fun, succubus.” Caught off balance, Ichigo leaps and catches only empty air.
Rukia stares at the space where the fae was just a second ago, and then at Ichigo. “Idiot, you didn’t use two suppression cuffs on him?” she asks incredulously.
“I didn’t know he was that strong!” he protests, and yelps when she reaches up and drags him over to Yuzu by the ear.
“We’re taking the girl and her mother back to headquarters until she’s back to normal and then we’re erasing their memories and sending them home,” she hisses. “Now thank Yuzu for getting here so quickly, she hasn’t even had breakfast yet.”
“O-oh it’s okay Rukia-nee!” Yuzu chirps. Light-haired and smiling down at his partner, she belongs under the sun, not in the shadows. Guilt twists in his chest and when Rukia lets go of him Ichigo reaches out, ruffling his little sister’s hair.
“Thanks, Yuzu. Come back with us and I’ll get you set up with breakfast from my supply, okay?” he says, covering up his guilt with what he hopes is a casual enough tone.
Rukia only realizes what the fae meant the next day, long after the spell has worn off the little girl and they’ve modified her memory and her mother’s, after her cheek has been seen to and the paperwork filed. “So what movie are we watching?”
Rangiku pours each of them a generous glass of wine and settles back on the couch after handing one to Nanao and the other to Rukia. “Falling Inn Love. You’ll like it, it’s low-key and cute.”
“It’s mindless,” Nanao complains lightly, but she tucks Rukia between them and hits play.
Unlike most succubi (or at least, every succubus she’s ever met), Rukia doesn’t feed by having sex. Instead she has girls’ nights like this, where she cuddles up between her friends and takes in the latent energy they give off, lets it sustain her.
But as the title screens play, nothing happens. She thinks nothing of it at first, but by midway through the movie she should be feeling recharged and… she isn’t.
By the end of the movie, Rukia’s yawning despite only having the single glass of red wine.
And by the time she returns to headquarters for her next shift two days later, she’s exhausted. And starving.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“You do know how to make a girl feel pretty, Ichigo,” Rukia says dryly.
Unaccountably, he flushes, and scrubs a hand through his hair, against the back of his neck. “Che. You just seem tired, is all.”
There’s a blood bag in his hand, and for a second, she wishes she was a vampire instead of a succubus, so she could just drink her meals instead. “I’m fine.”
He eyes her skeptically, but doesn’t say anything. And really, she is fine. They only get called upon once the whole shift, to deal with the ghost of a little boy who just wants his mother – it takes about five minutes to gently encourage him to cross over.
But the situation deteriorates. None of her usual feeding methods work: not movie night with her friends, or Ukitake’s good-natured ruffling of her hair, or even hanging out in a singles’ bar. The only thing that helps even a little is Ichigo – being near him isn’t enough to sustain her, but it helps a little…
It takes another three days for Ichigo to say anything after that first night. “You need to feed,” he says implacably when she drags herself into work, a hollow look in her eyes. “And I know you haven’t been. Why the hell not?”
Rukia glances away from him. “You don’t need to worry about me,” she mutters. Whatever the fae did will wear off. It’s only been five or six days.
Ichigo’s hand falls to her shoulder and for the first time in six days she breathes a little easier. It’s not enough, not even close, but unlike everyone else a little trickle gets through. Maybe because he’s a vampire? Maybe she can invite Yuzu and Karin over for girls’ night, that might help… “Yeah, I do.” He scowls down at her, wearing those damn reading glasses again. “You’re my partner, idiot.”
Rukia swallows hard, and savors the feel of his hand on her until Urahara pokes his head out of his office and sends them out on a call.
Later that night, after they deal with another toilet ghost (a waste of time and precious energy), Ichigo drags her out with Renji and Hisagi to Soul Society, the hottest nightclub for supernatural beings in Tokyo. “Come on,” he orders when she gets out of the car reluctantly. “There’s gotta be someone here you can… connect with.”
Ichigo is either the best wingman in the greater Tokyo area, or the worst. He fusses over her until she dredges up enough energy for a quick glamour, a quick shift to a short dress and high heels, and gets her a drink before smoothly introducing her to a handsome shapeshifter with a swimmer’s build and an openly friendly face named Kaito.
When she turns him down for a dance Ichigo finds a tall blond vampire instead, and huffs when Rukia turns him away, too.
“You need to feed,” he hisses in her ear around two in the morning. “Do you have a different type? Bigger build? Shorter? Come on, Rukia, work with me here.”
I don’t want you is what she hears. “I’m fine,” is what she snarls back, sipping dark liquor from a highball glass. The bartender comped it; she’s been attracting quite a crowd with her appearance despite her disinterest, and crowds get thirsty.
The next man he pushes her at is a werewolf built like an American linebacker, and Rukia punches Ichigo in the stomach before she stalks out on stiletto heels, leaving him to wheeze in pain before following her. He drives her home in silence, suppressing the urge to shake her.
“Well, what about Renji or Hisagi?” he asks a day later, when they’re on stakeout, looking for an oshiroibaba who’s been terrorizing women in a late-night salon off and on for the past three weeks.
“Fuck off,” Rukia mutters tiredly, sipping stone-cold tea listlessly from a paper cup. The fae’s curse still hasn’t worn off, and she’s been surviving off the faintest trickles whenever Ichigo’s close enough to touch. “I know you can barely stand to look at me but that doesn’t mean you have to try and throw me at every adult male in a thirty-kilometer radius.”
Ichigo’s draw drops open. “Wait, I don’t—”
Rukia cuts him off sharply, “She’s here, let’s go,” and shoves the car door open. Ichigo’s faster, hurrying ahead of her to confront the old woman with her box of face-melting makeup powder.
Unfortunately, Renji’s “intelligence” was wrong: the old woman has friends.
And they’re even more dangerous than she is.
They get separated, Ichigo chasing after half a dozen feral kamikiri while Rukia pursues the oshiroibaba. She calls for backup, chest already tight and straining to breathe. She hasn’t felt this shitty since college when she tried to stop being a succubus at all, and survive on protein shakes instead. (Spoiler: it didn’t work, and her roommate found her passed out over her laptop.)
“Stop, damn you!” she orders. Her quarry is way too fast for an old woman, and Rukia swears under her breath and puts on more speed, heedless of the humans she nearly knocks over in her pursuit.
Finally she gets a clear shot and takes it, stunning the old woman and sending her pitching to the ground just as a van pulls up. Kira hops out, blond hair partially concealed by a hoodie. “Secure her,” Rukia orders, “and then get this van turned around. I need to back up Ichigo.”
“Yes, Kuchiki-sama.” Kira has the suppression cuffs around the old woman’s wrists in a trice and they haul her into the back of the van together.
She can’t explain the sinking feeling in her stomach, the prickle of danger up her spine, but she needs to get back to Ichigo. Hisagi floors it and they both yell a warning when Rukia leaps from the still-moving vehicle six blocks later. Ichigo’s sudden shout of pain spurs her forward, down a narrow, dark alleyway.
Steel flashes in the light of the waxing moon overhead and Rukia smells his blood before she sees it, hears Ichigo’s strangled cry of pain echoing in her ears. Her gun is up again, finger flicking the setting from stun to kill, and she has fired before she even has time to think, taking out one, two, and then all three of the kamikiri surrounding him with three quick shots.
“Fuck,” Ichigo hisses, sliding down the brick wall and onto the stained pavement below. Blood spills from two stab wounds, one below his ribcage and the other close to his stomach; there’s a line of it trickling from his mouth, too, and Rukia falls to her knees, putting pressure on the worst of the two, hands immediately covered in his blood.
“Stay with me,” she orders sharply.
Ichigo raises his eyes to meet hers, almost black in the sliver of moonlight that makes it through the buildings surrounding him. “You get the – oshiroibaba?” he asks, face white with pain and blood loss.
“Kira and Hisagi have her in custody. Fuck, you need blood. Didn’t you eat before your shift?” Rukia demands, voice embarrassingly high, almost shrill.
“Forgot to,” he pants. “Wasn’t hungry. Help me up, some… in the car.”
Judging by the pool beneath him and what’s still spilling through her fingers, he’s not going to make it. “The car’s blocks away,” she protests, and lifts one hand away to tear open the sleeve of her blouse, leaving smears of blood on lavender cotton and the pale skin beneath it. “Come on. I know you don’t want to, but it’s an emergency. Just feed off me.”
He’s staring at her, eyes wide and dazed. “Don’t want—wha?” Ichigo coughs up another mouthful of his own dark blood. “You’re my partner, not… food.”
“Just do it,” she orders, and holds her wrist up to his mouth.
His eyes go dark and feral, but: “Not… like that.” Ichigo tugs her closer by her wrist instead, until she’s practically in his lap. A frisson of sudden arousal moves through her body, a sudden trickle of energy flows from him to her, and Rukia silently curses it; he doesn’t have any to spare!
“Like this,” he murmurs, shoving at the collar of her shirt until Rukia tears it open impatiently, sending buttons pinging off the nearby metal dumpster and wall. “Won’t hurt, I promise.” Suddenly much more lucid, Ichigo cups the back of her neck and brings her closer, closer, his other arm wrapping around her waist.
And, oh, kami, he’s right: it doesn’t hurt. His tongue swipes across her skin, once, twice, before his fangs pierce her and Rukia has to hold back the whimper of sheer pleasure that tries to escape her lips. “F-fuck,” she whispers, and Ichigo pulls her closer, lips sealed to her skin to drink. He gulps, twice, three times, before slowing down, sipping from her delicately.
But something else is happening too: the trickle of energy has become a stream, and as Rukia breathes in she relaxes into his arms, letting it wash through her and chase away the weeks of fatigue, of starvation. Beneath lavender fabric and her plain white bra her nipples tighten into hard buds; a trickle of wetness flows from her slit and soaks her underwear.
“W-woah! Rukia? We brought blood, we’ve got it right here, you don’t have to—” Hisagi trails off when she looks at him.
“Wait in the van,” she orders breathlessly. Ichigo shifts beneath her and opens his eyes to glare at them in the moonlight. A faint growl rumbles against her skin and Rukia hushes him.
“S-sure,” Kira says, and drags his partner away with him when Hisagi won’t stop staring.
His arms tighten around her. Beneath her fingers the bleeding stops and she can feel the way his skin knits together, the infusion of her blood letting his body go to work to heal his wounds. His tongue brushes against her skin again, sealing the wounds he’s left, but he keeps his face buried in her neck, lips grazing soft against her skin.
She’s practically shaking with arousal atop him by the time he pulls back to look at her. “Thanks,” he breathes when their eyes meet. “You look…”
Rukia’s cheeks flush a dull red. “I… didn’t know that would happen,” she mumbles, embarrassment replacing arousal. “I didn’t mean to… feed off you, not when you’re hurt, I’m sorry—”
Ichigo pulls her close again before she can do more than straighten up. “No,” he whispers into her skin. “As long as you’re feeling better, I – I don’t mind. Thanks for… letting me.”
“Yeah.” Her voice is embarrassingly soft. Her hips rock, once, before she catches herself and practically tears herself from him, so red she thinks she must be on fire. “S-sorry! I didn’t—”
There’s a strange look in his eyes as Ichigo finally straightens up and stands, towering over her once more. He probes lightly at the holes in his shirt and grimaces. “S’fine,” he mutters. “Let’s just get back to headquarters.”
“Yeah.”
But when he’s not looking at her, Rukia’s fingers brush against the healed-over skin where he bit her, and she shivers.
Ichigo can’t stop licking his lips whenever he thinks Rukia isn’t looking. He’s been drinking blood from the local blood bank for years, ever since he was turned – has a membership allotting him a certain number of bags every month, even, and tips the staff generously during Golden Week and the winter holidays for staying open. Before Rukia, he’s only bitten one live “donor”, and that was… not willingly.
The taste of Rukia’s blood is like nothing he’s ever had. Like peaches and cherries and the finest red wine, intoxicating and sweet all at once. The first drop of her lifeforce on his tongue let him know: he’s in trouble.
And instead of looking exhausted after he drank from her Rukia looks energized, cheeks flushed with health and the bags beneath her eyes gone as if they never existed. It’s not a glamour, either: it’s just his energy, filling her up and making her look good as new. It’s too bad she practically leapt from his arms, stammering apologies as she backed away, already using her power to shift into an entirely different shirt with a high collar and no bloodstains.
It’s clear she doesn’t want him to feed from her again, that she’s embarrassed that she had to feed from him.
Ichigo, though – he can’t stop thinking about it. Even a day later he can’t forget the taste of her and worse, he can’t forget the feel of her in his arms, small and slim and warm, weighing practically nothing on his lap. He can’t forget the little gasp she gave him or the way her hips rocked, just once. It was just because of his power, not because she feels anything for him, but still…
He doesn’t miss the stricken look on her face when Renji stops to stare at her; maybe he was right that Renji’s her type. Maybe he should try and set them up, that way she can feed, but… His heart twists in his chest. Ichigo’s not sure he’d be able to stand watching them.
“Ichigo! Your lip,” she says sharply from the next desk over.
He cringes at the trickle of hot blood on his skin and wills his fangs to recede back into ordinary canines, then dabs at the blood with a napkin. “Sorry,” he mutters. “I was preoccupied.”
Preoccupied with thoughts of her, he wants to say but doesn’t. She made clear her disinterest, her disgust at having to give him her blood.
Ichigo huddles at his desk and does his best to ignore her.
But he has another problem: the blood he gets at the bank doesn’t even hold a candle to hers. Maybe it’s because she’s a succubus or maybe it’s because she’s Rukia, but the next time he sticks a straw into his bag and sips the blood in his mouth tastes so much like dirt it’s all he can do not to spit it all over his keyboard.
“Ugh.”
“Hmm?”
“Must have left this out of refrigeration too long,” Ichigo decides, “It’s gone off.”
“…Does blood do that?”
He shrugs. “I guess it must. I’ll get some fresh later, when the bank opens tomorrow night.”
Rukia hums her agreement, apparently unconcerned, and goes back to her paperwork.
But Rukia’s return to full health is temporary. Soon enough she’s pale and wan again, and he knows she’s not feeding. Not that he’s any better – he’s thrown away half a dozen nearly-full bags of blood and has stopped drinking them altogether. They taste like the smell of an alleyway outside a nightclub.
“Why aren’t you feeding?” he demands when she looks away from him while they’re on patrol one night days later.
“I’m fine, stop hovering,” Rukia gripes at him.
“You’re not fine,” he insists. “And it’s starting to affect our work. Would I have gotten hurt by those kamikiri if you’d been feeding properly?”
He’s hit the mark: guilt has always been the best way to get her to acquiesce to something, and he tries not to take advantage of it. But she’s so tiny, if she got any smaller she’d disappear on him.
Rukia blanches and looks away from him. “It’s the fae,” she mutters finally. “Whatever he did… I can’t… feed the way I normally do.”
Ichigo blinks down at her. “You can’t… have sex? Ow! What the hell?!” he snaps, rubbing at his kicked shin. Rukia’s cheeks are so red they resemble cherries. Cherries, like the taste of her blood, and… he clears his throat.
“I don’t… feed using sex,” she mutters finally, looking away from him.
Wait, what?
“I can feed through touch. My friends have movie night and we curl up together and that’s enough. I refuse to sleep with someone just to use them,” Rukia snaps.
Ichigo wonders if their health insurance covers repairs to jaws, since his is on the floor. “So… why don’t you just do that?”
“I told you, it’s the fae.” Rukia glares up at him. “Whatever he did, I can’t feed like that anymore. Platonic… stuff hasn’t been helping.”
Ichigo scowls. Then a lightbulb goes off in his head and he takes a left turn and then a right, leaving Rukia blinking at him in puzzlement.
“This isn’t the way back to my apartment,” she points out. “Unless we’re taking the scenic route.”
“No, it’s not.” They pass a number of chain restaurants and stores before the area outside grows seedier, with vacant storefronts appearing more often.
The bright lights tip her off to the fact that Ichigo has lost his goddamn mind. “What. Is. That?” she asks slowly, enunciating each word.
He pulls into the parking lot and puts the car in park. “You said platonic touching isn’t working for you anymore. And you won’t… do things the usual way,” Ichigo points out, sounding as reasonable as if he was discussing the weather. “So.” And he gestures.
In front of them is a large, squat beige building with frosted-over windows. A long blue awning with a red carpet leads to a set of heavy wooden double doors. It looks perfectly ordinary – except for the tall sign at the front of the parking lot that reads Emi-Sama’s House of Earthly Delights.
“This is a strip club.” Against her will Rukia’s voice pitches higher, words strangling in her throat. “You want me to go to a male strip club? Why do you even know this is here? Have you been inside?”
Ichigo’s cheeks heat and he looks away, scrubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t want her to, but if he offered himself, she’d laugh in his face, and there’s only so much a man’s ego can take. “I don’t want you to starve, okay? And no, I haven’t been inside. For fucks’ sake.”
“Why do you even know about this place?!” Overhead the flashing lights of the sign resolve themselves into a dancing, bare-chested man wearing a cowboy hat.
“This is the backroad out to the cemetery,” he grumbles reluctantly. “I used to take it when there was traffic.” When I was human and could visit mom during the day.
“If you don’t pull out of this parking lot in the next forty-five seconds, I am going to stab you in the jugular with my heels. Both of them.”
“But—”
She reaches down and pulls off one of her shoes, a red-soled affair with a ten-centimeter stiletto heel.
Ichigo puts the car back in gear with a muffled curse. “Damnit Rukia, I’m trying to help,” he snarls. It’s not like he’s fed in the last week either; he’s gone longer, but not by much.
Her cheeks are as red as cherries again, the flush splotchy and stark against the pallor of her skin. “I… the only thing that helped was the other night, when you…”
When he fed on her.
And Ichigo takes a deep breath and lies through his teeth. “There’s kind of a shortage at the bank lately,” Ichigo says lightly. “Two of their refrigeration units broke, that’s why some of their blood went bad.”
Rukia blinks up at him, anger and embarrassment stopped in their tracks by the change in subject. “And?”
“And it’s going to be a couple weeks before they can fix them, something about backordered parts.” Ichigo very carefully doesn’t look at her. “If… me doing that works, what if we trade? Just until we can fix whatever the fae did, and the bank fixes its refrigerators?”
The car is silent except for the faint whirr of the ventilation system. “Fine,” she says, after a long moment. “A trade.”
Unfortunately for him, Rukia refuses to let her hold him like he did that first time. Instead, she sets them up in a conference room back at headquarters and very properly rolls her shirtsleeve up to expose her delicate wrist. It makes his mouth water anyway, and he can feel his canines lengthening in his mouth. “I won’t let it hurt,” he says quietly, echoing the promise he made weeks ago now. I won’t ever hurt you, he doesn’t say.
Rukia holds her wrist out. “I know. You’re not like that guy Urahara kicked out.”
“Ginjo? Hell no,” Ichigo grumbles. Her wrist is so small, though, he worries he might hurt her anyway. Her neck would be easier, but far more intimate – and he knows Rukia doesn’t want intimacy; at least, she doesn’t want it with him. Hell, she probably would have turned down this, too, if he hadn’t guilted her into it. He swipes his tongue over her wrist and the fleshy part of her palm several times, until she jerks away reflexively. Ichigo keeps her in place with a light touch.
“What are you doing?” she sputters, clearly flustered.
He raises an eyebrow. “I promised it wouldn’t hurt. A vampire’s saliva has properties that dull pain.”
“Oh.” She glances away from him. “Get on with it, then, my wrist must be… numbed enough or whatever.”
“Che.” She’s taut as a bowstring and Ichigo gives her skin another swipe. “Relax,” he orders. He wants to be offended that she thinks he’ll hurt her, or let her feel even a drop of pain. But this is a trade, nothing more than that. A symbiotic relationship between coworkers to meet her needs and his. He waits until Rukia rolls her shoulders down and back, until she leans back in her chair, to bite.
Peaches and cherries. Sweet syrup like the kind she likes on her shiratama. Rukia’s blood is even sweeter than he remembered when he was feeding off her while halfway delirious from pain and bleeding out on the ground.
Beside him she stiffens before her entire body sags back into her chair. Pink floods her cheeks and her skin regains some of its color.
He would drain her dry if he took in all that he needed, she’s so small; instead Ichigo takes slow sips, savoring the taste of her and the rush of life that washes over him, her life, filling him to the brim. Ichigo nearly loses it when she moans; it’s all he can do to stop, to gently lick at the cuts he’s left in her skin until they close over and start to heal.
He licks his lips and savors the last of her taste, the last bite of fruit and the last drop of syrup. “Better?” he asks, clearing his throat when his voice is embarrassingly raspy.
Rukia opens her eyes. She’s practically glowing with health. “Much,” she says faintly.
And he wishes, he wishes this wasn’t a trade, that she wanted him the way he wants her – so much he starts thinking of old cases, of the nest of kappas they routed three days ago that stank up the local zoo so badly they thought they’d never get clean, and the teke teke they’d routed from a subway station a few hours ago, sending her to the other side before the poor girl could actually kill anyone.
“Good,” he mutters, and pushes himself to his feet. “We should file the case report on the teke teke, and then I need to get home, before I need to sleep here.”
Rukia shakes herself and follows, brushing invisible wrinkles from her perfectly pressed skirt. “Of course,” she agrees. She steps through the door he holds open for her and Ichigo bites his lip, trying not to take in the faintly floral scent of her shampoo.
He gives her a ride home again and takes a lightning-fast shower before falling into bed still warm and a little damp from the hot steam.
When he opens his eyes, she’s in his bedroom, not in the sensible suits she wears for work or the deliberately seductive dresses she uses when distracting a target, but in a nightgown, lavender-hued and looking soft to the touch. “Rukia?” Without looking at his phone he can tell it’s dark outside, early evening. “Am I late for work?”
“Your shift doesn’t start until tomorrow,” she says quietly and draws closer to him. “I…”
Ichigo sits up in bed. The soft sateen sheet falls away to reveal his bare chest, and Rukia blushes a pretty shade of pink when he swings his legs over to one side of the bed and stands, wearing only a flimsy pair of dark boxers. “What’s wrong?” he asks as he closes the distance between them. He’s so much taller than her, so much broader; Ichigo’s hands fall to her bare shoulders, and they both shiver at the touch of his sleep-warm hands on her skin.
Their eyes meet and Ichigo loses his breath; there’s desire in the pools of her deep blue eyes. They’ve always reminded him of twilight, of the deepest blue hue of the sky before the sun is fully gone, before it starts to rise. He doesn’t get to see the sky when it’s that color much anymore; he only gets to see it in her eyes. “I…” She stops again, flustered.
“Tell me, Rukia. Aren’t we partners?” His hands close on her shoulders and squeeze gently. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
Instead, she reaches for him, pulls him down to her height and kisses him, lips pillow soft. Ichigo’s mind goes blank for about half a second before he’s kissing her back, hands sliding up from her shoulders to her neck and then her cheeks, cradling them in his huge palms and tilting her head to deepen the kiss. She gasps against his mouth and stands up on her toes to get closer.
And oh, he wishes they’d done this sooner because she is so soft against him like this, so delicious. Heat washes through him and he can feel himself getting hard just from this, from the touch of his hands on her cheeks and hers clasped behind his neck, fingers pressing into his trapezius. They kiss for a long time, until her lips are swollen and red against his, until his back hurts from bending down so far, and Ichigo drops his hands low, skimming down her shoulders and waist to find her thighs and lift her up, hitching her legs around his waist so he can straighten up and rock hard and wanting into the softness of her.
“Is this okay?” he asks against her mouth, and leaves off kissing her long enough that she opens her eyes to meet his again.
“The bed would be better,” she murmurs, one corner of her mouth curving in a smirk.
Ichigo takes a slow breath and carries her the short distance to his bed, laying her down on sateen sheets and trying not to lose it at the sight of her on his bed, hair spread in a halo on his pillow. He climbs in and lays himself alongside her, drawing her into his arms for another long, slow kiss. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs into her mouth.
Their kisses turn rougher, more heated, and suddenly her nightgown is gone and she’s not just in his bed but naked, and Ichigo isn’t religious but he prays for the will to hold on, to be able to give her everything she wants so she’ll let him keep her here. “Touch me,” Rukia whispers.
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
She is so soft under his hands. Ichigo drops his mouth to her neck, kissing his way down to her shoulders and then her breasts, shuddering at the feel of silken skin beneath his lips. He cups one breast in his hand and takes the other nipple into his mouth, savoring the hitch of Rukia’s breathing and the way she moans for him, arching her breasts into his mouth and hand. “You’re so perfect,” he whispers against her skin and doesn’t leave her breasts until her nipples are both hard and red, until she’s writhing beneath him.
“Ichigo!”
“Mm. What do you need?” he asks when he finally lifts his head. “Tell me, Rukia?” There’s a husk to his voice already, and he’s so hard. If he wasn’t still wearing boxers, he’d probably have ruined the sheets by now from how much his dick is leaking.
Rukia’s legs part suggestively and Ichigo’s breath hitches. “Yes,” he whispers, and kisses his way down her chest, down her flat belly, until he reaches the shadowed place between her thighs. She’s so soft when he dares to slip a finger beneath the fine, dark hair that hides her skin from him, and so wet. He wets his fingers on the telltale moisture between her slit and presses further into her folds, stroking gently to find the places that make her shiver. With his other hand he urges her thigh over his shoulder.
“Oh,” she whispers. “Touch me,” she says again. “I want your fingers and your mouth, Ichigo.”
“Yeah?” he breathes against her. He won’t lie to himself or to her, he’s thought of this before, of pleasing her like this, but never thought she could feel the way he does, never thought Rukia could possibly want him the way he wants her.
Her hips buck up towards his mouth, and her fingers are in his hair, pressing him closer. “Do it,” she tells him.
And Ichigo never could deny her anything. He’s certainly not going to start now. She’s heady against his mouth, soft musk and clean sweat, and a hint of that peach taste when he licks her for the first time, tongue dragging through soft folds and against the soft bud of her clit to make her gasp. He uses one hand to part her outer lips and keep her open for him, fingers pressing and stroking to find the sensitive spots beneath her skin.
He’s always prided himself on being a quick learner; whenever Rukia moans he gives her more, listening for hitched breaths and gasps, for the sweet little cries she can’t suppress.
“J-just there,” she pants, and Ichigo presses harder with his tongue, lapping at her until she’s shaking. He presses one thick finger inside her and then another, curving them up to seek the spot inside her that he knows will make her scream.
Beneath his mouth she writhes and calls his name, tells him just where to touch her.
He wants to make her come so bad. She tastes so sweet and Ichigo wants her pleasure, wants her to cry his name again, wants to feel her come around his fingers before he replaces them with his cock.
“I’m- Ichigo, I’m c-close!”
And Ichigo redoubles his efforts, lips closing over her clit and sucking while he adds a third finger, coaxing and coaxing until—
“Ah! Ichigo!”
And he can’t help how smug he feels as her thighs close around his head and her hips buck. Rukia pants into the air, hands fisting in the bedsheets while her juices sluice around his fingers and her pussy clenches so tight around his fingers he can’t move them, can only press deeper to make her feel even fuller, but not as full as his cock, god he hopes she lets him fuck her, he’ll make it so good…
He takes his mouth away but keeps his fingers deep inside her, rocking carefully as her orgasm ebbs down. “Like that?” Ichigo smirks up at her, drawing the back of his other hand against his mouth and chin. He can’t believe how wet she is, or that it’s because of him.
Rukia’s practically glowing against the dark sheets; she must be feeding, feasting on the lust between them, and Ichigo silently preens. He’s the one making her feel this way, he’s the one who can make her scream his name and feel so, so good. She reaches for him and he comes to her, sliding up her body to wrap himself around her and let her taste herself on his lips. “Fuck me,” she demands. “I want you inside me.”
Out of habit he reaches for his nightstand before he remembers that he doesn’t have any condoms, hasn’t had sex since he was turned and hasn’t wanted anyone but her anyway, but Rukia must be a mind reader in addition to a succubus because she draws him back into her arms and wraps her hand around his dick and strokes, makes him grab for her and shudder against her. “Succubi can’t get pregnant and you’re a vampire,” she mutters, and Ichigo laughs against her lips at the reminder.
She’s right, of course, and it’s all he can do to keep from coming right then and there when her thumb rubs over the head of him. “Yeah,” he mutters, and spreads her thighs, urging her to wrap them around his hips instead. Her ass fits into his hands perfectly, and his dick rocks up against her hot core, making them both shudder.
She helps him slide into her, tilts her hips in his hands as he sinks into the perfect velvet heat of her. She’s so tight and yet so wet around him. “Fuck,” Rukia breathes and Ichigo nods tightly, teeth clenching as he presses deeper, until their hips are pressed together and he’s fully seated inside her.
He rests his forehead against hers, body shivering against hers. “You’re so tight,” he rumbles. “I – I need you so much, Rukia…”
Rukia smiles up at him, arms wrapping around him and fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. “I need you too,” she reassures him. “Fuck me, Ichigo?”
And he does, giving her long, slow strokes and burying himself deep with every thrust. She rocks with him, hips finding a rhythm together. Ichigo slams his mouth against hers and hitches one of her legs higher over his hip, tongue thrusting into her mouth in a mimicry of the way his hips are moving. “Hold onto me,” he husks, and shudders when her arms tighten around him. “Need you so much…”
“Need – ah! – you too.”
Time dilates and blurs and when her nails bite into his back Ichigo’s thrusts turn rougher, harder in turn. He drops a hand between them and slows long enough to dip his thumb into her slick where they’re joined so he can rub her clit again, circling and pressing. She jolts beneath him, and her moans are so beautiful, low and full of pleasure, full of his name in broken syllables.
His mouth drops to her neck and his canines lengthen, but Ichigo doesn’t bite until her fingers tunnel through his hair and she whispers her permission. He softens her skin with his tongue and bites just as he thrusts deep.
Rukia screams.
Beneath him she writhes so beautifully as she comes, clenching tight around him and riding his cock as he drinks from her. Ichigo follows with only a few more thrusts, burying himself deep and spending himself inside her with one last powerful thrust that drags another moan from her. He has the presence of mind to swipe his tongue across her neck before he lets his head drop, staying buried inside her.
Eventually he raises his head to look at her again, to kiss her. “I lov—”
Rukia bolts upright in her bed, breathing hard like she’s run a marathon. It’s the middle of the morning and slivers of sunlight peek in from her curtains; she must not have pulled them all the way shut. She fights to untangle the sheets wrapped around her. She’s alone; there’s no sign of Ichigo anywhere.
Then why is she throbbing with arousal, nipples rock hard and aching for him? She reaches up to brush a hand over her neck but the skin there is smooth and unmarked. “Just a dream,” she whispers, as her heart finally slows down. “Just a dream.”
Collapsing back against the mattress, Rukia groans faintly. She’s drenched and her clit is throbbing in time with her heart. She rolls over onto her side and closes her eyes, but the throbbing doesn’t abate and her thighs are damp. Finally, she rolls onto her back again and shoves her panties down her hips, fingers dipping between her folds to coat them in her own arousal.
Bad enough that she dreamt of fucking her partner, she shouldn’t masturbate to him too, but even as she rubs her clit with the pad of one finger, the false memory of him comes to her unbidden. It’s not as good as it was in her dream, but in her mind’s eye it’s Ichigo touching her, Ichigo whispering in her ear to tell her how hot she looks as he fucks her with his fingers, and she comes hard and fast, slapping her other hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her moans when her orgasm rockets through her.
She sinks back against the bed, absently pulling her panties back up and her lavender nightgown down below her knees.
Silently Rukia curses herself; not only did she have a sex dream about Ichigo, which would have been bad enough given that he’d never look at her like that, never touch her like he can’t get enough of her – but then she touched herself to thoughts of him.
She is so fucked.