Part Four:

Kaoru awoke to silence the next morning. Complete, utter silence. It was so odd that she found herself scrambling into her clothing and tying off her hair hastily as she flew from her room.

"Yahiko? Kenshin?"
She skidded to a halt on the porch, and blinked.

"Ohayo," Kenshin greeted. He didn't lift his eyes from the fabric he was mending. Her hakama. Folded to his side was his pink gi. Kaoru could still see the rents in it.

"Are you still mad at me?"

He looked up at her slowly, letting his dark and cloudy violet eyes speak for him. Kaoru hid a shudder as she saw the wildness contained within those eyes.

"Kenshin…"

He stood slowly. Though not a tall man, his presence, when he wished it to be, could fill an entire room. When he stood, Kaoru felt the full weight of his regard bearing down on her.

"Are you recovered?"

What was that odd look for? Kaoru took a quick inventory of Kenshin's person—he wore no sword. She sighed with relief. "Yes."

"Good."

Kaoru gasped as Kenshin grabbed her. He pulled her into his embrace and buried his face in her neck. His breath was hot, nearly burning, and uneven against her shoulder.

"Never again," he said, his voice muffled by the fabric of her gi and her skin. "Never." Kaoru was shocked to feel the fine tremble that sped through his shoulders—almost as shocked as she was to feel the cool, unmistakable touch of his lips on her neck.

"Ke… Kenshin?"

"Oh beloved! To stand there, unable to act, afraid to harm you…!" His lips were traveling up her neck, touching the lobe of her ear and then settling heartily on her temple. His arms, swordsman's arms corded with muscle and strong of sinew, tightened around her. Her breasts flattened into his chest and her hips settled against his own.

She attempted to breathe. Her hands were roaming his back of their own volition. She became aware of the strength there, of the heat of his body beneath her touch and against her. She felt herself melting into him, this stranger who wore Kenshin's face and spoke with Kenshin's voice but was behaving in a most Un-Kenshin-like manner.

He set her from his as suddenly as he had pulled her against him, and the separation was chilling, both physically and mentally.

"Look at me," he commanded.

She did, biting her lip and twining her fingers around his wrists as he twisted his around hers.

"I cannot allow this again, you understand? Such torture cannot be endured, even by one as unworthy as I!"

Kaoru goggled at him. Had Kenshin gotten hit on the head? She searched his face for some sign of humor, or of anger. Was this some sad, sick joke? No, Kenshin would not do such a thing.

"I… I'm sorry if I scared you," she said haltingly.

"Scared me?" His violet eyes widened. "Beloved…" The word stretched between them, naked and vulnerable—and as full of intent as the look in the rurouni's endless eyes. There was no pretense there, no posturing--and no hiding. The masks of civility were gone, the Battousai was clearly silent. The only one left was… Kenshin.

A fire kindled there, in those violet depths. A flickering spark that became a heated blaze. Kaoru gasped as she felt her body respond to that unvoiced call. Her heart began to pound and her chest felt tight with emotions she dared not reveal. Tears stung her eyes at the simple sincerity of his words.

She stammered out a useless, nonsense sentence. Kenshin smiled sweetly and brushed her cheek softly with his hand. His fingertips slid beneath her ear and settled against the back of her head.

"Kenshin!"

He bent toward her. Kaoru smelled spice and heat and sweaty, musky male. Kenshin. Her hands clenched tight around his elbows. She knotted her fingers into the sleeves of his gi and held tightly to him.

The world shook when his lips touched hers.

Tenderness swelled within Kaoru's breast at the butterfly-light touch. Soft, barely there, but undeniably sweet.

"Aayiiee! Kenshin, why are you sucking face with the busu?"

Needless to say, the tentative emotion that the couple was nurturing between them shattered like a mirror cast upon stone, the pieces scattering to the winds. Kaoru's mood did likewise.

She turned to her young apprentice with glowing, eerie eyes. Her mouth was contorted into a peculiar smile that screamed of the roiling temper underneath.

Had Yahiko been somewhat older, or any more used to the female temperament, he might have noticed these details, Kenshin thought. As the boy didn't, the rurouni began to back slowly away from the enraged woman. The woman, he thought with dazed incredulity, who had only moments before been cuddled against him. His lips still tasted of her.

They were arguing, yelling at each other in voices that surely must carry to the street and beyond. Kenshin winced, knowing that the afternoon's walk to the market for dinner supplies would once again be remarked about by the eagle-eyed—and eared—matrons who ruled the town's social circles. He realized that he had not seen the stares or heard the whispered comments for some time now. Not since…

He smiled, and returned to his mending.

Things were getting back to normal.

He felt eyes upon him. Kaoru's eyes. Her brilliant, gem like gaze was watching him, even as she argued with the boy.

Well, maybe things were changing.

But perhaps that was only as it should be.

Perhaps, the rurouni thought, feeling unexpectedly light of heart…

No way, the Battousai growled.

"I was just going to…"

No way are you thanking that damn Wolf for this little adventure.

Kenshin laughed, abandoning vague seduction plans that he knew would go awry. "At least," he said in a low whisper, "we are of the same mind on that thought!

THE END