A Rickety Bridge

Chapter Two: Helping Hand

Miroku sat awake on the edge of camp, knowing his body was not going to simply settle and let him rest tonight. He sighed piteously, his staff leaning heavily against his shoulder.

Sango. She couldn’t just let things be easy, could she? He was a decent guy—he was. But she was pushing him in a direction he knew he shouldn’t go. He was trying to keep himself out of trouble, his hands untied, and losing his head with Sango would be permanent and final in a way that churned his gut.

He liked her—he really did, but this whole monogamy thing just seemed so…limiting. And that’s what fucking Sango would mean. Not in his mind, obviously, but certainly in hers. Well, if he were honest, which was always ludicrous thing to be in his opinion, that wasn’t completely true. Sango was under his skin, burrowed in deep; there were times when he thought being faithful to her wouldn’t be so bad.

In his experience, thinking of the women he tried to bed as reasoning, functioning beings was counterproductive. Whether this was reflective of his general taste in women or his overall asshole-ness, he wasn’t completely sure, but it was a policy that came to him naturally and served him well. Sango wouldn’t fit into that system, though a part of him stubbornly kept trying to squeeze her in. At first he wondered if it might be that she was a warrior, but that couldn’t be it. He’d had a lot of experience in the past months with women who were tough fighters and most ran together into the beautiful, but unremarkable, slop that was his compiled memory of conquests, almost-conquests, and pretty girls he just passed on the street. He thought perhaps it was that he was traveling with her. A girl he saw every day, couldn’t get away from, was a girl who would remain distinct. This theory made much more sense, considering his view of Kagome, the first girl he had ever respected. The unfortunate side-effect of spending extended periods of time with a girl seemed to be that she became a person. This was just fine with Kagome, who was so hung up on Inuyasha that Miroku never had a shot to begin with, but with Sango it meant that he’d grown a bit of a conscience. A conscience he couldn’t seem to circumvent like his regular one. She also tended to spawn a contentment in him that made him want to get up and run. The idea of being faithful to Sango was not nearly so frightening as wanting to be faithful to her.

Of course, all this thought of fidelity was asinine because he hadn’t laid a hand on her—or he had, but hadn’t gotten anything but Sango’s handprint in his face for it. It hadn’t escaped his attention that he’d been celibate since meeting her. It wasn’t for a lack of trying on his part or a shortage of impressionable young girls willing to raise their skirts for him, but that he just seemed to have the worst luck. Every damn time. When he had told Mushin this, the older priest had laughed and suggested to Miroku that the universe was trying to tell him something. Load of crap, Miroku scoffed. But the dry spell was driving him crazy. Since he was thirteen he’d never gone so long without sex and he was on edge. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have self-control, he just didn’t like exercising it. And, it pained him to admit it, but that control might not be as tight as he thought it was, or perhaps he was so used to indulging himself that he was out of practice in the art of restraint. Either way, he found himself steadily rationalizing bedding Sango. In desperation, he’d pulled back, hoping that less frequent contact would mean less frequent descents into perversion, but it was only working so well.

Things had been so simple before he had asked her to marry him. He hadn’t actually thought she’d say yes, even though he knew that she had feelings for him—Sango was the kind of prideful and practical girl who would never consider marrying a man who would lie to her daily, never do any real work, and sneak around with other women whenever he thought he wouldn’t get caught. Sango was the kind of girl who would demand, and get, nothing but complete devotion from the man she spent the rest of her life with. Or so he’d thought. He’d been so overjoyed when she said yes, thinking of bedding her, planting his seed in her, getting to call her his own, that he’d briefly forgotten the reciprocal of her owning him. He wouldn’t deny it—well, he would to her (he didn’t want to get stabbed again), but not to himself—he wanted out. There was something appealing and strangely joyful about the fantasy of marrying her, something that allowed her to tempt him in a way that no woman had before, he had to admit. But he also knew that she would never be happy taking him as he was, and that he would never change.

The conclusion was not touching her. If he was lucky, he would die before Naraku was defeated and he’d never have to tell Sango he didn’t want to marry her. The conclusion also required his hard-on to go away.

He didn’t doubt Shippou’s words. The kitsune was always very calculated when it came to spilling the beans. There would have been no appeal to telling a lie because lies never created as much chaos as the truth and Shippou was just trying to shift the focus from Inuyasha and Kagome’s constant tension. If there had been any doubt as to the assertion’s authenticity, Sango’s reaction would have quashed it.

Sweet Buddha, she missed him groping her ass. He was already having problems not squeezing those cheeks every few minutes; this knowledge was going to make it near impossible. She had always reacted so adamantly against, so violently toward his sexual advances he had begun to think there was actually something to that hostility, that his lascivious touch was one form of attention she truly did not want from him. This new discovery had his mind digging up scenarios in which she found other groping not-so-repellant as well. It was taking every bit of his wavering restraint to not turn around and rip her blankets back to try out some of those ideas.

There was a soft female whimper behind him. He froze, ears perked and itching for sound. After two minutes, he was beginning to think he’d imagined it, was hearing things he wanted to hear in his horny fantasies, when it happened again. Slowly, he turned around in his seat on the log and looked at Sango.

She was facing away from the fire, half-way laying on her stomach, her brows furrowed and face twisted almost unpleasantly. For a moment he thought she might be having a nightmare, but she licked her lips before a soft moan escaped them, and if he had been standing he might have fallen over. There was no mistaking the meaning of that. She shifted restlessly under her blankets and he couldn’t hold back a groan. She bit her lip softly and jerked her hips, unable to get the friction her body needed. Miroku sat fascinated, watching the perspiration appear out of her flushed skin, her chest rising and falling as her breathing increased.

“Please...” she suddenly whispered. “Please...houshi...–sama.”

His erection surged and swelled even larger. He had been hoping she was dreaming about him, but nothing could touch the proof of hearing it from her lips. Compulsively, he answered her call, crawling across the ground to her side. Stopping over her sleeping form, he studied her tense, flushed face. He wanted to kiss her awake and take her, but that would put the shackle firmly around his ankle. Plus there was no real guarantee she wouldn’t hit him and scream. Yet he had to touch her—he had to.

Miroku extended his trembling hand, and carefully lifted the hem of her blanket. Hardened nipples were pressed against the tightly drawn fabric of her yukata, the folds parted in her stirring and turning so that the tops of her breasts were visible. He swallowed and wickedly lifted his hand to commit one of the most perverted acts he had ever stooped to: fondling a girl while she was sleeping. He ran his palm over a soft orb, keeping his touch as light as he could manage to minimize the possibility of waking her. She arched slightly, pressing herself into his hand, and he shuddered. Unhurriedly, he massaged the tip of her nipple with the flat of his thumb, causing her to make a sharp but barely audible sound in her throat.

Her legs were moving edgily, thighs clenching and unclenching. The sight made him sweat. She wanted it, she wanted him—he could have her, take her right this moment and end his universe-imposed sentence of celibacy. He slid his hand down her body instead. Now was not the time to do something foolish. Miroku was a desperate, horny fool, but he was also a shrewd pragmatist and he vowed that he would not lose his head.

The warmth of her blankets closed over his fingers as his hand disappeared from his sight. He felt her erratic breathing as he passed over her stomach, caressing as much as he dared as he went. He didn’t stop or even pause in moving lower. He was barely able to bite back a grunt as he cupped her mound, her heat scalding his skin and her wetness seeping and spreading through the fabric he had pressed into it.

He heard Sango whimper a soft sigh of contentment as her body found the pressure and friction it needed to get the release it sought. He didn’t move his hand, just held it there. Anything else would have likely led to her waking up, would have disrupted her dream. Her body did all the work, rolling into his palm in waves. He pressed back each time her hips rose to his touch, paying particular force to the spot where he knew her sensitive nub lay.

Miroku looked at her face. She was quiet, but he could tell she was close. It would be a small orgasm, the kind following no foreplay, with minimal build-up. But it was an orgasm, and he was the one giving it to her. The knowledge was so heady it had him reconsidering his priorities. But as her release shook her, all those thoughts went out of his head in favor of watching her sweet mouth part and choke a breath of excruciating bliss.

He forced himself to regain his composure as she grew calm. After her hips ceased the last of her tiny afterglow gyrations, he gently, carefully pulled his hand from her covers, doing his best to rearrange them as they were before he’d disturbed their position.

He drew back on his haunches, staring and her now calm form. Sweet hell, what had he just done? He tried to muster regret for it, but as perverse, as degenerate as it had been, he could not.

“I smelled that.”

Miroku started, his heart nearly jumping from his chest. His eyes flew up to the tree where Inuyasha was perched lazily on a branch, back propped against the trunk. Of course, the houshi realized, with Inuyasha’s animal senses and trained habit of sleeping light, there was no way he could have missed that. He would have to keep this fact about the hanyou logged away for later, in case he ever did want to conduct something sexual in secret.

“And heard it?”

“Feh, better than you did.”

Miroku smiled wickedly. “And saw it?”

“Fuck no. Had my eyes closed the whole time.”

“Of course you did.”

“Damn right. And for your sake, I’ll forget it happened as long as you never fucking do it again.”

Miroku paled at the thought of a commitment to abstain. He went on the offensive instead. “As though you’ve never wanted to do that to Kagome.”

Inuyasha growled. “Keep talking and you’ll wake them all up.”

“Admit it, you think of lifting that little skirt of hers all the time.”

“Kirara is already awake, and Shippou’s stirring. You know how he likes to drop secrets all over the fucking place.”

Miroku turned to look behind him where Kirara was staring wide-eyed, a threatening glint flickering in those slitted orbs. She could smell her mistress’s most intimate juices on him, he could tell. Flashes of being mauled to death by a giant cat made him gulp loudly. The vision was followed by that of Sango hacking him in half with her katana after hearing from a little kitsune what had happened to her while she was sleeping.

If Inuyasha and Kirara could smell Sango on him, then Shippou would be able to as well. Inuyasha had just sworn not to say anything and Kirara couldn’t talk, for which Miroku was blissfully thankful. But Shippou.... Well, Inuyasha had said it all about Shippou. Miroku could picture the cub asking over breakfast, ever so innocently, why Miroku smelled like Sango in heat.

“I’m going down to the hot spring.”

Inuyasha smirked, catching his train of thought. “Good idea.” The hanyou shifted in the tree. “And hurry. I want to sleep and I can’t if you’re thrashing all over the damn place.”

Miroku made his way down to the spring, mentally kicking himself. After years of seducing girls with their parents just a paper wall away, he’d grown jaded and saw privacy as of subjective importance. Most humans slept deeply enough that he and Sango could have rutted for hours without waking anyone if they were quiet. But his companions were not all humans and he’d been very forcefully reminded of that tonight.

Shucking his clothes on the bank, he stepped into the warm water. He sighed in relative relief. Now he could take care of his problem.

Years of seducing girls with their parents just a paper wall away had also given him ample experience being caught in the act, being on the receiving end of violent threats, and being chased from towns by villagers swinging farming implements. One thing he had learned: a little mortal danger was no reason to lose an erection.

His hand reached down and grasped his jutting cock. He began to pump his hand up and down, pulling the skin pleasantly. She had been so wet she’d soaked the front of her yukata with her cream. He thought of the way her body had surged against his hand, the sounds of her fevered breathing in his ear. Thinking of how desperately she had begged, called for him, was enough for him coat his hand in his seed.

In the wake of his explosion, Miroku sighed. All his plans to be noble and spare Sango the mistreatment of being his woman, all his desperate schemes to keep himself free, they were crumbling before him now. He could hold out a little longer, but only a little. He knew no matter what kind of self-control he mustered, in the end, he was going to fuck Sango.