Sakura sighed and rolled her neck. She cupped her shoulders at the base of her nape and pulsed a bit of healing chakra.
She was spending too many evenings at her desk looking over the data for the children in the institute. The caregivers were very thorough with their reports and while that relieved her it was also more work for her to get through every day.
It was only a year and a half since she had opened up the institute and while she was no longer in the experimental stage of the program, everything could still be hectic. The hardest part had been finding the caregivers and doctors for the children—people that understood that they weren’t treating soldiers.
The research and paperwork that she had poured over had been atrociously lacking, not only for children but adults as well. It was disgustingly obvious that the only insight to mental health that Konoha had was in the use of torture and interrogation. With Ino’s help, the two of them picked apart all of the data until they could find anything useful.
Luck was on Sakura’s side that the Yamanaka clan already had an understanding of how the mind operated. Due to the nature of their family jutsu and the young age of which their shinobi clansmen trained, there was a foundation she had to work with.
Speaking of the Yamanaka family jutsu, Ino was insistently sending her messages to go home. Her voice wheedled in Sakura’s mind and nagged at her.
A hot bath, warm food, and her bed sounded lovely. She knew that all she needed was to head home and her mom would have all three ready for her.
Locking the stacks of unfinished documents into a cabinet, Sakura began her nightly clean up routine. For the past year she used to stay holed up in her office until everything was completed but due to the person sleeping on her office’s couch at the moment, Sakura had stopped working overnight.
Stifling a giggle, Sakura crouched down on her toes and brushed Sasuke’s hair out of his face. He had grown out his forelocks into bangs that fell over his rinnegan and while the look suited him, sometimes she missed seeing his face in full.
Sasuke had taken to sleeping in her office, complaining that there was always some sort of disturbance at his apartment. She had teased him about it, stating that he just missed her. He hadn’t replied to her verbally, but chose to show her how much he missed her once they got back to his apartment.
Blinking his eyes, Sasuke woke up the second time Sakura ran her fingers through his hair. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards and he sat up, pulling his legs back from over the arm of the loveseat.
“Are you going to walk me home, Sasuke-kun?” Sakura asked, continuing to run her fingers along his hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.
Sitting up, Sasuke stretched his arm over his head. “You’re not coming over?”
Heat traveled up the back of her neck and she cleared her throat in discomfort. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s late and I’m still in trouble with Mama from last time I accidentally slept over. You know how she is about premarital relations━don’t you laugh at me!”
Sasuke turned his head away from her but his shoulders slightly shook, giving himself away. He had walked her home and sat with her as her mother lectured her and Sakura insisted that she had fallen asleep while working on paperwork. Haruno Mebuki hadn’t bought the story.
“Come here,” Sasuke asked softly, patting the space between his legs. Sakura shrugged off her lab coat and let it fall to the floor before settling on the couch between his legs. She laid back so her back was against his chest and her legs laid across the cushions. Sasuke’s leg closest to the edge slipped off the couch to accommodate her.
“Kakashi sent a scroll for you,” Sakura told him as he settled his chin on her shoulder and wrapped his arm around her waist. “He figured out your hiding spot.”
“Not really a hiding spot. Where else would I be?”
“Right…” Her voice trailed softly as her cheeks bloomed with heat.
Sasuke had been back home for months and Sakura still wasn’t used to him speaking to her or of her in such a way. It was one thing for her to just know that he enjoyed her presence and took comfort in it by his actions, it was another when he voiced it out loud and confirmed it.
The words were never direct but her heart translated them into a different phrase.
Taking her right wrist, Sasuke rolled it in a circular fashion, stretching the joint and pressing his thumb along the inside, massaging the flesh there.
“You wrote a lot today.” His voice was low against her ear, his breath warm and causing her to shiver. Sakura hummed and nodded, not trusting her words, as he continued to trail his fingers up her arm.
Sasuke stroked at her skin until he reached the back of her nape and he cupped Sakura’s neck and massaged it with his strong fingers. He rolled the base of her neck in his hand and Sakura felt the warm sensation of chakra pulsing from his hand and soothing out the knots as he continued to add pressure with his thumb and fingers down her shoulders.
“You’re getting better at that,” Sakura moaned in relief. “You’ve been studying.”
“Just a bit.”
Sakura didn’t need to see his face to know there was a smirk on it; she could hear the smug undertones in his voice. It filled her with joy when pieces of the young Sasuke revealed themselves in this older version of him.
“Turn around.” The order was whispered but it beat loudly in Sakura’s chest right next to her heart.
Sex still felt new, despite the two of them getting into it whenever the opportunity presented itself. Sasuke’s voice, husky and desperate in her ear, caused her as much nerves as it thrilled her. They were still learning what made the other tick, what touches were more desired.
She decided that she liked the way she felt in Sasuke’s hand. His skin was deliciously warm and the friction from calluses and scars from the nicks from holding shuriken created a pleasant sensation when his hands roved over her soft skin.
He pushed into the flesh of her back, soothing her muscles with his thumb and kneading with his fingers.
“That would be easier if my shirt was off.” Sakura licked her lips and hoped Sasuke took the hint. “And much easier if I was lying on my stomach.”
“Since when have I ever done things the easy way?”
Sakura whimpered when he removed his hand from under her sleeveless top, missing the heat that radiated from his palm. Sasuke took hold of her chin with his thumb and index finger and tilted her face up so he could press an open mouthed kiss to her lips. When he tried to pull away Sakura pressed forward, straddling his lap and wrapping her arms around his neck.
Her skirt bunched up around her hips and Sasuke’s hand went to her left thigh and caressed the flesh there. Sakura hummed in delight as the soreness from standing all day for observations drifted away with his soothing touch.
She yelped when his hand slid between her legs and he began to massage a new ache. Her hands tightened their grip on his hair and she rocked her hips against his hand.
They had never done something like this anywhere outside of his apartment. Their intimate moments were limited to the walls of Sasuke’s new home and that had been just fine with them until an annoyance kept ringing at the door.
Naruto had been late in discovering their relationship. He had whined because he felt that they had owed it to him to let him know when they had finally gotten together because he was their best friend. He had not been happy to find out that Sai and Ino had known before him.
“I told you first about Hinata!” He had whined to Sakura and Sakura didn’t have the heart to tell him that it didn’t count because if he hadn’t shared his feelings with her then he probably wouldn’t have gotten a chance to be married.
It wasn’t the same for her and Sasuke. Naruto’s interference was likely to impede any progress in their relationship. He would have kept trying to get involved and would have interfered with their alone time.
“What are you doing?” Sasuke asked as she dipped her hands inside his waistband. He quirked an eyebrow up in amusement as she began to stroke him.
“Doing some massaging of my own.”
Sasuke groaned in distaste, sliding down the couch so that he was lying on his back. “That was really bad.”
“And yet you’re still hard,” Sakura snapped, tugging down his pants to free his member.
“Your cheesiness has no effect on what your hands are doing.” Sasuke’s lips curled upward as Sakura increased the tightness of her hold and the speed of her strokes. “You’re getting better at that. Have you been studying?”
“Shut up!” Sakura burst into a peal of laughter at his teasing. “Are we really doing this in my office?”
“Say the word, I’ll do just about anything to you on this couch.” Sasuke gritted his teeth, stopping a moan from escaping. “Especially if you keep that up.”
“Give you a handjob and you lose all sense of shame, huh?” Sasuke narrowed his eyes at her as he reached between her legs again and then pinched her clit. Sakura jumped a little, squeaking from the shock.
“I’m not the one getting wet from giving a handjob.”
“Oh, that has nothing to do with this.” Sakura dropped her hold on him and tugged her top over her head and off. Reaching behind her, she unhooked her bra. “You’re the one that was using a medical technique to try and seduce me.”
Sasuke shrugged but the smirk remained on his face as Sakura shimmied out of her panties. Without bothering to take off her skirt she straddled his hips again, settling his cock between her folds. She rolled her hips, sliding over him in just the right way that it hit her clit as she grinded against him.
Usually Sasuke was enough stimulation for her, but there was something about pressing him into the couch of her office that had her blood pumping faster. Perhaps it was the thought that he couldn’t wait to touch her and to be touched in return that he didn’t care that they were on a cramped sofa.
Leaning closer so that her chest was flush against his, Sakura licked up the line of Sasuke’s throat before sucking his lower lip into her mouth. She felt him shiver under her hands as her tongue stroked the space behind his teeth.
“I love you, Sasuke-kun,” Sakura murmured, smiling softly as Sasuke’s cheeks were dusted pink in his flustered state.
Sakura felt a pull around her navel and then found herself flat on her back, Sasuke looming over her. He had switched their places without warning.
“Sasuke-kun!” She scolded him for his use of his Rinnegan during foreplay, but he ignored her in favor of pressing kisses to her sternum and laving at her small, pert breasts as he slid off her skirt. Rolling her eyes, Sakura pulled at the hem of his shirt and tugged it off of his body.
Sasuke took her hand in his and pressed it flat over the breast he wasn’t attending to with his affections. He molded his hand over hers to stimulate her hand into moving, silently asking her to massage her own breast. Once Sakura got the hint, Sasuke dipped his hand between their bodies and slipped his fingers between her thighs once again.
That’s how it was with him. He barely spoke aloud the words that would express his feelings, but he spoke it with his actions and hid it in other statements.
Younger Sakura would have demanded a clear proclamation of his love, for him to declare it in a way the world would know of it. Nineteen year old Sakura though, had twenty year old Sasuke desperate and determined to have her climbing the highest peaks of pleasure he could give her, displaying a vulnerability she was the only person privy to.
“No.” Sakura shook her head, her voice trembling, and pulled Sasuke’s face away from the hip he was sucking on. “Not today. I want you closer. Now.”
Close. No matter how flush against each other they were, it never felt close enough. Unlike Sasuke, Sakura didn’t have Sharingan in order to always carry perfect memories of him with her.
She needed him to burn the memory of him on her skin with his hot fingers. Needed to feel him hot and slick against her, speaking a language only known to two of them. Needed to tattoo his love for her with every scorching touch of his.
As amazing as it was to watch him from above, all flustered and bothered and eyes pleading for her to relieve him of his want, Sakura prefered him like this. Sasuke would angle their hips, lifting her bottom to meet his thrusts and then loom over her, caging her head in between his forearm and the remainder of his left arm. Pushing her down, his body was a comforting and welcome weight.
Her fingers splayed against his shoulder blades, Sakura felt him move above her, thrusting and muscles flexing. Her finger pads felt the coarse lines of scars littered on his skin. She traced them as Sasuke pounded her into her office’s couch and she cried out incoherent words of gratitude that none of the old wounds kept them from having their current moment.
Sasuke exhaled a laugh against the crook of her neck as she came down from her high. “Did you just thank me for your orgasm?”
“No!” Sakura’s face grew even hotter and she slapped Sasuke against his chest. He just continued to laugh silently as his hips moved against hers.
“Just a bit more and I’ll be thanking you too,” he teased her, gripping her hip tightly as he grinded deep within her.
Sakura covered her face with her hands, trying to hide from the embarrassment. The action had Sasuke stilling his hips and moving her hands away from her face. He interlocked his fingers with her left hand and pressed his forehead to hers.
“Don’t hide from me,” he muttered, red eyes boring into hers. His tomo swirled as a particularly rough thrust in the new angle had Sakura tensing and crying out for more. Sakura wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close for a kiss, swallowing his moan as he spilled inside of her.
Sasuke collapsed against her and Sakura’s left leg dropped so that it was dangling off of the couch. Sakura’s fingers sank into his thick hair and she massaged his scalp, her nails drawing curlicues.
“How did I end up being the only one that actually got fully naked again?” Sakura grumbled as Sasuke tucked himself back into his pants, barely moving his body away from her. “How do you keep doing that?”
Sasuke simply shrugged and nuzzled closer to her, crushing her chest to his. They lay like that, listening to the way the clock on the office wall clicked the seconds in tandem with their heartbeats. Sakura knew she had already pushed past the acceptable time to return home without her mother assuming she and Sasuke were playing house.
“I want to wake up with you again.” Sasuke’s voice was low but his breath fanned against Sakura’s neck and shoulder.
“Yeah?” Sakura breathed out the question, feeling the way Sasuke nodded his head against her shoulder. “I love you too, Sasuke-kun.”
He didn’t protest the way she had stated her love as if it was a response to his own. Sakura’s chest grew warm at the way Sasuke wrapped his arm around her and held her closer.
Someday, Sakura thought as she pressed a kiss to Sasuke’s temple. Someday I’ll have all the mornings with you.