Stripped Bare (kakashiXsakura)

chapter 20

Kakashi lay in bed, eyes red-rimmed by the need for sleep, yet all he could do was stare at the water stains on the ceiling as his mind replayed again and again what had happened earlier that night.

He loved Sakura. He knew that now. But the knowledge offered no joy. He was terrified, terrified and angry, both at himself and at his pink haired partner. He could still hear her lustful screams ringing in his ears, the breathless pleas to be fucked harder and the wet slap of flesh on flesh as the yellow eyed man impaled her deep and fast. Kakashi knew that it was her mission to seduce information out of their target, but why did she have to sound like that? Why did he have to hear her? For someone who had been so resistant to the idea of sleeping with another, she certainly sounded like she was enjoying herself, and though Sakura was a skilled kunoichi, he didn't think her acting skills were quite that developed.

Kakashi's anger stemmed from more than just the jealousy of another man experiencing something so intimate with Sakura. It ran deeper than a mere insecurity that someone might pleasure his former student better than he could. He was angry and hurt because it confirmed that Sakura didn't reciprocate the feelings he had only so recently named. She didn't love him now, and probably never would.

She loved Sasuke, she always had since Kakashi had come to know her. He doubted she would abandon her dreams of being with the Uchiha for someone fourteen years her senior just because he had been the one to sleep with her first.

Ironically enough, Kakashi had fallen victim to unrequited love despite his solemn vow that having sex with Sakura would be for nothing more than training purposes. He couldn't deny the pleasure he experienced from tasting the forbidden her fruit, and he'd hoped their repeated sexual encounters for nothing more than to satisfy their need for physical satisfaction. Yet he knew that wasn't true.

The Copy nin pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and groaned softly, mentally and physically exhausted but still wide awake.

He was stupid, so incredibly stupid for letting his emotions get tangled up like this especially during a mission. He wasn't an emotional person. He hadn't been since he received the gouging wound inflicted on his boyish heart when his father betrayed the village when he was just a boy, before he was even old enough to understand what had truly happened. Afterward, he had become withdrawn, and only receding further into his shell with every death he witnessed. But this…this was something even he couldn't ignore. Somehow, the heart he had presumed to be dead had chosen the worst time imaginable to beat again, and it was interfering greatly with his performance on this mission.

He was no longer objective, could no longer trust his own judgment. He was irrational and quick to bursts of both passion and anger whenever Sakura was concerned. The fact that he had actually considered having sex with Tsurenai while Sakura was engaged in the most critical part of their mission was absolutely sickening. Just what kind of jealous creature had he become, leaving his partner alone when he was supposed to be backing her up? And yet he still lay in bed, unable to return to her and see the face that had unwittingly torn apart his heart.

Suddenly, Kakashi knew he was not alone, a presence was on the other side of his door. But rather than reach for the kunai hidden under his pillow, he simply stared stony faced into the darkness, for it was a presence he recognized, though it belonged to a person he was not in the mood to see at the moment.

The doorknob turned and the door cracked open, wider, wider. And then there she was, standing in ratty sweats looking freshly showered and gloriously radiant, even without makeup.

As he sat up in bed, he noted that the recent shower would have washed away any residual filth from encounter with their target, and yet his eyes scanned her critically from head to toe as if searching for proof of the act of her indiscretion even through her clothes.