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The Slow Seduction of Lina Inverse	By : Kaitrin Category: +S to Z > Slayers Views: 2152 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Slayers. If I did, it would have a whole heck of a lot more romance, instead of being mostly action/adventure! I only write for fun and will make no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-The Slow Seduction of Lina Inverse
- 1
The Slow Seduction of Lina Inverse

It had seemed like the perfect job for them. A childless noble had died, and his surviving heirs—a couple of distant younger cousins—wanted their inheritance cataloged. It was rumored that the noble had been a collector of things rare and esoteric, making Lina a perfect candidate to do the cataloguing. On top of a generous fee, they had been given any remaining provisions in the noble's main mansion, as well as any items they could carry off, providing they carried them on their own back and not on a pack animal.

The first few days had gone well. They had worked together, moving from room to room. Gourry crated things, while Lina made the manifesto. Then they had come to the library.
He tried to understand, really he did. He would probably react similarly if they had encountered a huge armory filled with quality swords and equipment. Doubtless, he would have the overpowering urge to test the best weapons, to get a feel for their strengths and weaknesses. But Lina seemed to feel the need to read through each and every book.

Every single one.

And there were thousands.

The first day they had entered the library, she had drifted over to the closest shelf like a moth to the flame. He doubted she was even aware of him as she pulled a title, seemingly at random, and started to leaf through, standing there by the shelf. He watched the minutes drag out, as she eagerly scanned pages, eventually crouching down, and finally sitting on the floor, still engrossed in the book. Lunchtime came and went without her noticing—something virtually unheard of. When she finished the first book, she set it carefully on the floor, and pulled out the next one. She read non-stop until the sun set and the light died. At that point, he thought she would finally notice the fact that he had filled quite a few crates while she had sat there reading. Instead, she asked him to light the lamps. He had given up on her several hours after dark. As he headed off in search of food, a bath, and his bed, he told her not to stay up too late. She had given him some vaguely worded reply.

The next morning, he found her in nearly the same position, although the stack of books in her "read" pile was a bit taller.

By noon, she had fallen asleep on one of her books. Every time he tried to move her to the room she had claimed, it was the same. She would wake up, protest that she was not sleepy, and she would go back to reading for a few minutes before dropping off once more. Finally, Gourry gave up and just covered her with a spare blanket he had found in one of the rooms they were not using.

He hated to admit it, but he was jealous of a damn library.

It hurt more than he had thought possible to see her attention focused exclusively on something else. Not that he ever really had her undivided attention for long periods of time. Before this, he would have sworn up and down that she was easily distracted. That, at least had been his experience of her. Then again, he had never really seen her around a large quantity of books.

On top of that, he was bored out of his skull. Sure, he could keep crating up the mansion, but there was only so much he could do without Lina. She still needed to survey the contents of each crate for the manifesto. It hardly seemed worth the effort to crate things up, only to have to unpack them for Lina and then repack them again. He was bored, but not so desperate as to create busy work for himself.

He had tried to distract himself by watching her. Unfortunately, that had proved to be too distracting. Even engrossed in a book, Lina was never still. She had to be moving in some way. Usually, she had to be chewing or sucking on something. Sometimes it was the tip of a pen. Sometimes it was her finger, or a tendril of hair, or a tendril of hair curled around her finger. She was always sticking something in her mouth, always calling attention to it. He would watch her sucking on the tip of a pen and wonder how it would feel to have those lips moving against him.

When he caught himself snapping a pen into very tiny pieces while fantasizing about finding every single writing utensil in the mansion and burning the whole pile in a wonderful bonfire, he had to admit that he had a serious problem.

And when he woke up with Lina's name on his lips and a pronounced ache in his groin, he knew he had to do something soon.

He had been in love with her for years. There had been many times when he had yearned to shift their relationship out of comfortable "friends" territory and into something a bit more intense, but events had conspired against him each time. Even when they were alone, there was something about Lina that forbade close contact. She was very protective of her personal space, and he had decided it was better to remain in the "just friends" category, rather than forcing the issue and ruining things.

It was much easier to convince himself that he was happy just being her companion and protector when there were things to do.

He had to admit, Lina was highly educated when it came to magic and history. Not so much when it came to all the ways a man and a woman could interact. It was time to take matters into hand. Otherwise, he would be forced to take other things literally into hand, or go absolutely insane.

Thus began the slow seduction of Lina Inverse.

With an emphasis on slow.

He began by finding all kinds of legitimate excuses to be close to her, turning himself into somewhat of an errand-boy, always responsive to her needs. He found spare parchment for her to use to take notes, extra ink, even the damned pens she could not seem to keep out of her mouth. He brought food, going out of his way to prepare some of her favorites, like the full-course chicken dinner. In some cases, he would go so far as to take the pen out of her hand, and put the food in. If she so much as licked her lips, he was there, pressing a glass of chilled wine into her hand.

And he touched her as much as he could. Innocent touches. A hand on her shoulder to get her attention. A simple gesture to push her hair out of her eyes when he tucked her into the couch he had brought down after finding her asleep in a pile of books the second day in a row. Casual contact when they exchanged items. They would walk arm-in-arm sometimes, when he insisted they eat in the dining room so they would not get food on the books. Always, he would let his hand linger, and soon, those casual touches became something more . . .

Half the time he was elated and giddy that she allowed his touch. The other half, he despaired because she seemed oblivious to the difference between simple contact and deliberate caress.

The day he came up behind her and started idly massaging her shoulder, she had shocked him by dropping the book to her lap.

"Don't stop," she commanded, as she rotated her shoulders and wriggled until his hand was closer to her neck.

It took all his self-control to limit himself to kneading stiff neck muscles while listening to her groan in pleasure. That night, he took a cold bath, forcing himself to stay in until he was shriveled and blue. Once in his room, he focused first on honing the edge of his sword and then polishing it into a mirror-like gleam. When he finally fell asleep, his dreams were full of Lina groaning as he suckled at her neck, leaving livid red love-bites from her shoulder to ear. He awoke to a bright sunny morning, his sheets sweaty and in total disarray, while the throbbing in his groin demanded immediate attention.

At breakfast, Lina studied him intently. "Are you okay?" she finally asked, reaching her hand over the table to feel his forehead.

"Why?" Gourry asked, striving for casual boredom. Hard to achieve when all his senses were focused on the feel of her hand on his brow. Part of him wished she was not so completely oblivious to the effect her touch had on him, while the other part was ever-so-thankful he had taken matters directly into hand this morning, or he would be incredibly uncomfortable at the moment. As it was, he resisted the urge to squirm in his seat. At least the napkin in his lap hid the evidence of his growing erection.

Finally, Lina shrugged and removed her hand. "Well, you don't seem to have a fever. I was going by your room late last night and it sounded like you were thrashing around. Since you normally sleep pretty quietly . . ." she trailed off with another shrug.

"Everyone has restless nights, occasionally," he finally offered. He reached out a hand and cupped her cheek while rubbing at a dark smudge with his thumb. "When's the last time you used the baths?" he asked, cursing the fact that he had dropped back into his "big brother" voice. "You're accumulating as much dust as those books."

"Speak for yourself," she retorted as she stood up from the table, moving casually out of his reach.

"Why, am I dusty?" he asked, as he picked up a spoon and peered at his distorted reflection.

"No," she replied as she wrinkled her nose, "sweaty." A faint blush dusted her cheeks. "It doesn't smell bad or anything," she added quickly. "Just . . ." she trailed off and her eyes took a faraway look.

Gourry held his breath.

"Never mind," she finally said. "I'll be in—"

"The library, right?" he interrupted.

"Yup!" she announced cheerfully. "There's actually only a couple more books I want to read cover-to-cover. Most of the rest I've either read before, or they're just Lord Margstrom's annals or accounts."

"Oh?" he asked, mildly curious.

"You know," she answered. "'In this year the cow died,' and 'on that day I paid so much for such and such an item.' Really boring stuff."

"Why would anyone bother writing down a bunch of trivia?" Gourry asked. For once, he was actually following the conversation.

Lina shrugged. "I dunno. Some people have funny ideas about 'recording things for posterity.' I've seen historians go wild over such things. Frankly, I don't really see why we should care if someone's cow died in a particular year, but you'd be amazed what historians can pull out of such a laconic statement." She laughed, and tossed her hair over her shoulders. "I much prefer the tales and lore to the daily drivel!"

"How much longer?" he asked, feeling like he was starting to lose the thread of the conversation. He understood her words easily enough, but he had a hard time imagining someone getting excited about reading about someone else's dead cow.

"Hmm," Lina considered, tapping her finger against her lips. "I should be able to finish The Menagerie this afternoon. That leaves just The Deeds of the Heirs of Lyzeille, An Age of Tyrants, and The Letters of the Wolf of Ferri�res . . . I'd say either tonight, or sometime tomorrow," she finally said decisively. "Why?"

"I was just wondering if it was worthwhile to start crating things again, or if I should hold off a bit longer."

"Poor Gourry," she said, half-serious, half-mocking. "I know it's been hard on you the past few days."

He raised an eyebrow inquiringly.

"I'm not completely oblivious, you know," she said, stamping her foot. "I know you've been mostly bored, and I really appreciate that you've been letting me read and all." She paused considering. "I know, I'll make it up to you! I'll buy you dinner once we're done here, your choice!"

"That'll be the day," he said with a laugh. "I'll believe it when I see it."

"I've bought you dinner," she protested with affronted maidenly innocence. "What about that time at that restaurant outside the barrier lands?"

"You bought that on the credit of the Royal Family of Seyruun," he retorted. "Phil is the one who paid the bill."

"I signed the check," she said sullenly.

"Lina," he said in a pained voice, "you still haven't even bought me dinner for winning against Zangulus that time in that arena."

She glanced at him sharply. "You still remember that?" she asked in surprise.

"Let's just say that a promise to buy me dinner isn't really 'making it up to me,'" he said slyly. He considered asking for a future request, but decided that would tip his hand too much.

Lina chewed on her lip, considering. "Okay," she said finally. "What would be making it up to you?"

"Guess," Gourry replied, playing a sudden instinct. "If you guess right, I'll tell you."

"Not dinner," she said slowly, "so that eliminates food . . . A new sword?" she proposed. "Nah, I doubt we could find something better than the Blast Blade . . ." She appraised him suddenly, and Gourry grinned openly at her. "You're not going to give me any hints, either, are you," she accused.

"What fun would that be?" he asked, not quite managing to keep the smug tone out of his voice.

She muttered something under her breath and stalked off in the direction of the library while Gourry blessed his instincts. Lina would gnaw and worry at this until she solved the riddle, and it would likely drive her to distraction in the meantime. He doubted the solution would come to her quickly, if ever. If it did . . . well, he would deal with that when it happened.

Gourry cleaned up in the kitchen and dining room before joining her in the library. The moment he did, she pounced on him.

"Money?" she asked, sounding both triumphant and hopeful.

"Nope."

"How about property, then?"

"Nope."

Lina grumbled again and turned back to her book. She seemed to be making very little progress. Meanwhile, he puttered about in the library, mainly bringing in more crates, since it seemed that they would be returning to that part of their task soon. Every so often, Lina would make some sort of guess. They got wilder and more bizarre as the day wore on. By early afternoon, based on the glares she kept shooting his way, Gourry decided it would be prudent to avoid her for a while. She wore the expression that suggested quite strongly that there was a fireball out there with his name on it.

After spending a few hours constructing more crates out of scrap lumber, Gourry felt better than he had in days. There was something cleansing about hard physical labor. As he mopped his sweaty face with his shirt, he thought he might even be able to sleep peacefully that night.

Then again, maybe not, he amended when he noticed the flicker of the library curtain. Lina had been watching him off and on for the past hour or so, although he had not let on that he had seen her. She was probably still trying to figure out what he wanted, which meant he would have to face her temper sooner or later.

Well, he had dealt with an irate Lina before, and he had acquired a reasonable arsenal of tricks. But first, he wanted a bath. Dried salts and sweat-adhered sawdust had left him itchy.

After his bath, he poked his head in the library to call Lina to dinner.

"Be there in a sec," she said with an absent wave of her hand. He could tell the gesture was not as casual as she wanted him to think.

"Um, Lina?"

"Yeah, Gourry?" He could hear the faint edge in her voice.

"Why are you holding the book upside down?" he asked innocently.

She flushed guiltily and her eyes flicked down in panic. She stared at the book in her hands several seconds before she bit out from between clenched teeth, "It's not."

"My mistake," Gourry replied casually, closing the door firmly as he left the room. He heard the distinct "thud" of something solid hitting the door behind him.

It probably was not wise to rile Lina further, but Gourry found a perverse pleasure in seeing her frustrated and annoyed. It mirrored his own feelings from the previous few days. Besides, at least it got her paying more attention to him than to the books. He had caught the title of the one in her hand. She was still on The Menagerie, and she did not seem to be much further along. Given the fact that she had predicted being done at noon or so . . . obviously she had other things on her mind. He rather liked the idea that he was driving her to distraction, even if it was not precisely the same way she was doing it to him.

When Lina finally arrived in the dining room, she took a long look at the table, and then plunked herself down and started to eat and read at the same time. About half-way through the first course, she slammed the book shut and glared at him.

"What?" he asked innocently. "Something wrong with the food?"

"There's nothing wrong with the food, as you know perfectly well," she retorted. "It's all perfectly cooked, exactly the way I like it. Even the steak." She paused and cut off a piece and shoved it in her mouth. Her eyes closed and she seemed to be in pure bliss. Then she swallowed and glared at him again. "It's seared on the outside, perfectly red and juicy on the inside. Again, exactly the way I like it." Her tone was so aggressive, she made it sound more like an accusation than a compliment.

Gourry shrugged. "I haven't watched you send back steak after steak until they've gotten it right all these years for nothing." Actually, it had taken him quite a few attempts to get it prepared the way she liked it. It was quite tricky, in fact, requiring different cooking temperatures and careful timing.

Abruptly she changed topics. "I've wracked my brains all day trying to figure out what you would like most," she confessed angrily. "It's not anything related to money or power. It's not food or magic, or any material possession I can think of." She stood up, placed both hands flat on the table and leaned towards him, looking him straight in the eye. "Is there anything you want that you don't already have?"

So. She thought the answer to the riddle was "nothing." He returned her look with an amused smile. "Yes, Lina, there is definitely something I want."

She banged both hands flat on the table. "Damn!" she swore and then plopped back down in her seat, crossing her arms. She chewed on her lip for a moment, and she seemed to be arguing with herself about something. Finally, she exhaled sharply, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "Is it Sylphiel?"

Gourry had been in the middle of drinking his ale, and he found himself spitting it across the table in surprise.

"Is that a yes or a no?" Lina asked testily as she handed him a napkin.

"No!" Gourry practically shouted. "Definitely absolutely not!" He had not thought of Sylphiel in ages. She was a very sweet woman, and a great cook. And he knew she had a crush on him—he was not as oblivious as some people he could mention. But even before he had met Lina, he knew there was no way he could ever return her feelings in the way she wanted.

Lina's anger and annoyance melted away, replaced by curiosity. "Really?" she asked. "Why not? She's sweet, beautiful, and she has an incredibly strong magical capacity." Her eyes bored into him.

"Meh," Gourry responded noncommittally, "too sweet. She's not really my type."

"Really," Lina repeated as she resumed eating. "So, what is your type, then?"

The alarm sirens went off so loudly in the back of his mind that nearly all capacity for thought shut down. Lina looked casual enough, but something about her expression gave him the feeling that he had just stepped squarely into a trap. How was he supposed to answer that? After a panicked second or two, instinct took over. "Dunno," he heard himself say. "Haven't really thought about it." He took another swallow of ale and surreptitiously watched her over the brim of his tankard. At least it sounded like something he would say.

"Really?" she said yet again, this time sounding amused.

Gourry stood up from the table abruptly. "Finish your dinner, Lina," he said as evenly as he could. "I lit the hypocaust earlier, so the bath's ready for you." Maybe he should just tell her that his type ran to extra-petite perfectly proportioned flame-haired witches with attitudes.

But the moment had already passed. Lina flipped her book open again. "Yeah, I just want to finish this part," she said absently as she took another bite.

"Well don't take too long," he warned. "I didn't bring in that much wood, so it won't stay hot forever."

"Just bring in more, then," she replied negligently as she flipped a page.

Grumbling the entire way, Gourry headed outside to the woodpile. He had half a mind to just pick her up and dump her in the bath, clothes and all. Somehow, that little exchange about Sylphiel and his taste in women had shifted her mood enough so that she could concentrate on reading again, and quite frankly, Gourry felt cheated. She really was not supposed to give up so easily. Such things just were not a part of her nature.

By the time he returned to the dining room, having stocked the woodbin to keep the hypocaust running for the next few hours, Lina was gone. With a shrug, Gourry started cleaning up after their dinner, figuring that she had finished reading and headed for the bath. At least he hoped so. If it turned out that she had headed back to the library, he really would just pick her up and dump her in the bath. She would be mad, of course. He could just picture her struggling to get her feet under her, sputtering and muttering imprecations the entire time. And once she did stand up, her clothes would be completely plastered to her body . . .

The stack of dishes he was carrying tipped precariously, and he just barely snapped out of his fantasy in time to prevent them from crashing to the floor.

Enough was enough. This was getting to be absolutely ridiculous. Gourry set the stack of dishes on the sideboard next to the sink and stalked off to the storeroom. A few moments later, he emerged, carrying a small tray laden with a porcelain carafe of sake, two matching cups, and a large plate covered with what had to be the most exquisite desert he had ever encountered in his life: thin flaky layers of pastry surrounding a mixture of ground almond paste, sugar, cinnamon and cloves, all drenched in honey.

He checked the baths first, but they were dark and empty, so he made his way to the library. Sure enough, she was there, curled up on a couch with a ball of light hovering just above and to the side of her head. When he closed the door firmly to get her attention, she flushed and looked up guiltily.

"I'll use the baths, I promise!" she said quickly. "I just wanted to check this one part, and then—"

"No problem, Lina," he said equably. He deposited his tray on a small desk and dragged it towards the couch before seating himself on the other end. He poured a small cup of sake. "For you," he said as he handed her the cup.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously as she glanced between the proffered cup and his face. Gourry kept his expression bland. Finally she took the cup from his hand, and after a cautious sniff, she took a small sip. "Not bad," she said approvingly. "Where'd you get it?"

"Where else?" he asked. "Storeroom." He leaned back into the couch as Lina took another sip, still watching him suspiciously. Casually, he reached for a small triangle of the honeyed confection and took a large bite. The pastry crackled, sounding vaguely like rustling parchment.

"What's that?" Lina asked, her nose wrinkling delicately. Almost absently, she set her book aside on the arm of the couch, leaving it open to mark her place.

"Something for me," he replied casually, popping the rest into his mouth, and slowly licking the honey off his fingers.

She edged closer to him and her ball of light drifted towards the plate. "What is it?" she repeated, her eyes starting to take on a rather avaricious look.

"I told you," he answered as he nudged the plate away from her. "It's for me."

"C'mon, Gourry," she wheedled. "There's a lot on that plate. You're gonna share with me, right?" Her eyes flicked between him and the plate, gauging distance and his mood.

"Nope!" he said as he picked up another triangle and crammed it into his mouth, letting his eyes half close as he savored the flavors.

She took the opening he had provided and launched herself at the plate. He reacted instantly, standing up, while whisking the plate away from her and holding it above his head. Lina pounced on him, pulling herself up by dragging on his arm. A wonderfully enjoyable game of "keep-away" ensued. At least, he was enjoying it. Lina seemed to be growing more frustrated and determined by the moment. When she tried to levitate to eliminate his height advantage, he easily caught her with his free hand and pinned her against his body. Having her writhe against him in a vain effort to gain leverage was sheer bliss. He knew he could only push her so far, unless he wanted to end up crispy when she finally reached the blow-up point, but he fully intended to enjoy every second until then.

Much to his surprise, he reached his limit far sooner than Lina did. She continued to struggle against him while he fought against the suddenly overpowering urge to rip her clothes off and slide his hands over bare skin. To slip his fingers between her legs, explore heat and wetness—

He had to get control. Of himself. Of the situation. Before he ended up doing something that he would regret for the rest of his life (which would probably be very short). With a tremendous effort of will, he forced himself to relax and to ignore that part of him that was going insane with desire. Instead, he deliberately pushed Lina away from his body—taking a rather solid and painful kick to the shin in the process—and against the side of a bookcase. While he held her relatively immobile with one hand planted squarely in the middle of her chest, he dropped the plate on the top of the bookcase, well out of her reach.

Lina continued to claw at his arm, which was the only part of him she could conveniently reach, now that he had effectively stiff-armed her against the bookcase. Gourry stood impassively, concentrating on breathing normally while brutally resisting the temptation to slide his hand just a bit to the side so that he could cup her breast. Instead, he focused on the rhythmic beating of her heart beneath his hand.

Finally, Lina stopped struggling and just glared balefully at him. "Gourry," she said with a growl, "this isn't funny, anymore." Her fingers gripped his wrist, grinding painfully into the tendons in an effort to make him back away.

While keeping her pinned against the bookcase, he reached up for a piece of pastry. This one he held before her lips, silently offering her a bite.

Lina stared at him suspiciously a moment, before she let go of his wrist to reach for the pastry. Gourry casually moved it away, but he returned it to her lips when she dropped her hand. The silence stretched out between them while Lina studied his face. He had no idea what she saw to cause hesitation to flicker in her eyes, or why she slowly licked her lips. He only knew that his own eyes were irrevocably captured by that movement. He gently touched the corner of the honeyed pastry to her lips, retracing the path of her tongue, silently willing her to accept his offering.

He did not realize that he was holding his breath until her lips parted, and she took the tip of the pastry into her mouth, taking a very delicate bite—an uncharacteristic and very un-Lina-like move that made his breath hitch in the back of his throat and his heart thud crazily. He watched her chew slowly, her eyes half-lidded in obvious pleasure. He pushed the pastry against her lips again, mesmerized by the movement of her mouth. He was barely aware that he was closing the distance between them, although he was very conscious of her heart beating beneath his one hand as she slowly and daintily ate from the other.

It was excruciating torture and transcendental bliss all at the same time. He wanted the moment to last forever, to stay in the center of the deep breath before the plunge. He wanted to step over the edge and fall into a strange new abyss.

Lina beat him to it.

As he started to reach for another pastry, she grabbed at his hand, holding it in a firm grip. Her eyes focused on his fingers. Time seemed to slow, to stretch out as she brought his honey-stained fingers to her lips. The sensation of her tongue licking the honey off his index finger as her lips closed around the tip was enough to make his knees buckle. He knew his breath was coming faster, and he was having a hard time hearing anything over the roar of blood in his ears.

Lina finished her ministrations of his index finger and moved on to his thumb. He cupped her face with his remaining fingers, gently caressing her cheek, tracing the arc of her eyebrows, delicately stroking her closed eyelids.

Suddenly Lina released his thumb and the strongest sense of unreality washed over him. Lina was supposed to do one of two things: either act as if there were nothing remotely sexual going on, or kick him into next week. She was not supposed to encourage him, of all things! For a moment, he felt almost sick with disorientation. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying desperately to ground himself.

Closing his eyes was a mistake.

Before he could react, his legs were knocked out from under him, sending him crashing down to the floor—not exactly what he had in mind a few moments ago when he sought to ground himself. While he struggled back to his feet, Lina floated up effortlessly and scooped the plate off the top of the bookcase. He snatched at her foot, but all he got was her boot, and he ended up pulling it off her foot while she greedily stuffed her face with his desert!

"Lina," he growled at her. "I told you, that's mine!"

Lina paused momentarily, studying the small pastry triangle in her hand before popping it into her mouth. "Since you gave me one, I thought we were sharing now," she said innocently.

"How is you being up there 'sharing'?" Gourry demanded, glaring up at her.

She shrugged casually. "You had some, I get some. Seems fair to me!" She paused for a moment, her expression inscrutable. Then she held his eyes with hers while she slowly licked the honey off her own fingers, in much the same way she had treated his moments before.

Gourry forgot how to breathe.

When she finished, Lina's expression was one of innocent obliviousness, save for her eyes, which were as smug and self-satisfied as he had ever seen. Which led him to wonder who exactly was seducing whom?

"Still," Lina said slowly as she tapped a still-damp finger against her lips, "I suppose you might have a point . . ." She appraised the plate in her other hand while Gourry struggled to follow the thread of the conversation. "There's one left," she continued as she deposited the plate back on the top of the bookshelf. "You want?" she asked as she descended into range, holding the last pastry out to him.

As soon as she was actually in range, Gourry snaked an arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he snatched the pastry out of her hands with his teeth.

"Gourry!" she screeched at him as he savored the honeyed confection. "You almost bit my finger off!" She wagged the offended digit before his nose.

"Hmm," Gourry mumbled with a distinct lack of concern as he swallowed. "'Almost' doesn't count for anything, Lina."

"Oh really," she replied with a dangerous edge in her voice.

"Mmm hmm," he answered, ignoring the warning and pushing her finger out of his face. She inhaled sharply to respond, but before she could, he claimed her lips with his own.

He was prepared for her to resist. At worst, he thought she would push him away, or pull away herself. At best, he thought she might allow a chaste kiss. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her. Given her protestations about maidenly innocence and the fact that she seemed mostly oblivious to her effect on him, it was clear she lacked any experience.

Or so he had thought.

The moment their lips touched, her hands snaked around his neck to pull him closer, and her lips parted in a silent invitation. Conscious thought became impossible as he explored the depths of her mouth, memorizing the contours, savoring her flavor still tinged with a sweet residue. Everything was dark and warm and damp, and her soft moans were the perfect accompaniment, encouraging him, urging him on. Her grip on his neck was a silent command, forbidding him from stopping.

At that moment, he felt that he could easily be content just kissing her forever. And at the same time, the need to strip off their clothes, to feel flesh on flesh, to cover her with his scent and mark her as his . . . it was nearly overpowering.

Surrendering to the need to claim her flesh, he kissed his way along her jaw and down her neck, suckling and nipping. He knew he was leaving a faint trail of tiny red love bites—clear enough for him to know they were there without being obvious from a distance. Lina's head lolled over to the side, giving him full access, while her soft moans encouraged him to slowly drag the hand that rested on the nape of her neck down along her spine to cup her rear and pull her body snug against his. Part of him was tensed for a screech of protest. Instead, she molded herself against him, so that he could feel the heat coming off her, even through layers of clothing. With both hands, she dragged his head up from her neck and pressed her own lips gently against his. He could feel her quickened breathing as once again her lips parted against his, but this time, rather than a silent invitation, it was preface to her own demands. He felt her tongue snake out and explore his lips, followed by the gentle nibbling of teeth. He parted his own lips and she pressed her advantage. The heat and longing in her kiss took him by surprise, and he felt more than heard his own moan in response to hers.

He was barely conscious that he was vainly trying to push her higher and better align their hips, until he felt her grow lighter and slide up against him. With one hand splayed across her back and the other supporting her rear, he clasped her body against his, feeling her breasts pressed up against his chest while he ground his erection against her.

With a gasp, Lina released his lips and pulled back slightly to look at him. Her gaze was unfocussed, and her eyes had a glassy quality that somehow increased the pressure in his loins and made his erection throb. She held his eyes for a moment and then buried her face in his neck, her kisses and nips taking on nearly a frantic quality. Gourry tried to push her hair away from her ear with his nose, desperate to have his mouth on her flesh once more.

Instead, the strong smell of dust in her hair made him sneeze. Several times in a row, in fact. Right in Lina's ear.

"Gourry!" she huffed in annoyance. "That's gross!" She pushed away from him, dropping lightly to the ground and began wiping the remnants of his sneeze off her ear and the side of her neck.

"Sorry," Gourry responded insincerely with a sniffle. "But I did tell you to take a bath earlier . . ." He trailed off as Lina turned her patented death glare on him.

"Well, I really need one now, don't I?" she demanded, and she stomped off, slamming the door behind her and leaving him in complete darkness.

Gourry suddenly felt his legs start to tremble, and he quickly moved over to the couch, sitting down and letting his head fall between his knees. The reaction was starting to set in. He felt slightly queasy and he struggled to breathe normally, even as he cursed himself for not following his earlier idea of simply dumping Lina in the baths, whether she resisted or no.

Somehow, it had gotten away from him. It had become too intense, and he was scared to death that he had just ruined everything beyond repair. There was no going back now, no forgetting, no pretending nothing had happened. His body remembered too clearly the feel of hers pressed against him, it recalled all too well his own immediate response to her longing. The queasy feeling intensified when he realized there was no hiding his feelings from Lina from this point on.

And then his brain caught up with what his body had already recognized. Her longing. In marked contrast to the past several days, Lina had been far from oblivious to his intent; she had been an active—and rather enthusiastic—participant. He had been prepared to gently coax her into more intimate interaction, but instead, her reaction had been more like—

Gourry swallowed hard.

She had responded to him like someone who had finally found an outlet for long suppressed sexual energy.

No wonder it had gotten away from him.

But now what was he supposed to do?

He was off the couch and halfway across the room before he fully realized he was even moving. He had the strongest feeling that if he let Lina go off alone he would end up losing her, because there were things that needed to be said. Unfortunately, he had no idea what they were.

He found her in the furnace room next to the baths. The small cave-like room was mostly dark, lit only by the red glow of the furnace that supplied the heat for the hypocaust. Lina knelt with her back to the door, staring into the embers as she ran one hand over her arm from shoulder to elbow and back again.

Gourry struggled to find the right words to say. Finally he gave up and went for the practical. "You don't have to wait, you know," he said softly. "The water should still be plenty hot."

The back-and-forth motion of her arm halted briefly and then resumed, but other than that, she gave no sign that she had heard him, no indication that she was aware of his presence.

Gourry waited, trying to ignore the tight feeling around his heart. At the moment, it was all he could do.

Finally, she stood up and turned around. The glow from the furnace limned her with red light, but her face was hidden in the shadows. She could have been glaring at him or crying, but he could not tell, and so he had no idea what to expect.

Finally, he heard her take a deep breath. "Sex," she said shortly. "Am I right?"

"What?" Gourry blurted in surprise. He really wished that she would give him better conversational cues. He always ended up feeling like an idiot because he lacked the context to follow her.

"The thing that you wanted," she said impatiently in a tone that practically screamed, 'Gourry, pay attention!' "Was it sex?"

Oh. Gourry felt the tightness in his chest ease slightly. He could deal with impatient and annoyed. Still, it would have been so much more helpful if she had phrased it that way in the first place. "No," he started to answer, and then he hedged. "Yes. Well, no, not exactly . . . " He closed the distance between them and reached out to tilt her chin up so the light fell on her face. "I want to be your lover, Lina" he confessed. "Compared to that, the sex is just a bonus."

Something flared in her eyes, and a quick progression of emotions danced across her face: lust, confusion, annoyance, exultation, and a bit of fear. But no rejection, the thing he had most feared to see, and the relief that surged through him was nearly enough to bring him to his knees. Her eyes took a far-off quality for a moment, and then she gently pushed his hand away. "Stop that," she said, but without any real force or bite. "I can't think straight with you so close like that."

"What's there to think about?" he asked, even as he complied, not sure if he should be flattered or insulted.

"I'm trying to figure out how the guy who's been treating me like some little kid for years now, who is constantly acting like an over-protective big-brother . . . who makes fun of my breasts—"

"I don't make fun of your breasts!" he protested as his eyes drifted down to appreciate the current topic of discussion.

"Do too!" she shot back. "You're always going on about how small they are—"

"They are small," he pointed out, trying to sound reasonable. Instead it came out sounding a bit strangled, as he was suddenly struggling against the urge to cup her breast in his hand, to run his thumb over a nipple . . . With a great deal of effort, he dragged his eyes up to meet hers. "What, you'd prefer that I lie to you and tell you that they're the biggest I've ever seen?"

"You lied to me about your feelings," she accused, sounding a bit breathless.

"I hid my feelings, Lina," he returned with some heat. "I didn't want to scare you." He raked his hand through his hair. "You get so uptight if I even get within arm's length of you sometimes. I was afraid that if you knew how close I really wanted to get, I'd never see you again."

He could see her thinking, considering. "How long?" she finally asked, her eyes narrowed. "How long have you been hiding behind that annoying big-brother act?"

Gourry suppressed a sigh. He had a feeling she was not going to like his answer. "Since the moment I saw you standing there with Sylphiel," he admitted, picturing it so clearly in his mind. The three of them had been working together, battling against a powerful and dangerous foe: him, Zel and Amelia. The two sorcerers had been firing spells at the Sword of Light, and he tried to control the extra energy while his mind gibbered in fear because the last he had seen of Lina, she had been laying in a puddle of blood from a hit that had gone straight through her chest. And then suddenly, she had been there, standing with that cocky pose, as if nothing had ever happened to her. Even though they were in the midst of battle, he wanted nothing more than to crush her in his arms, assure himself that she was truly real. "After she'd saved your life."

Even in the dim light, he could see the color drain from Lina's face, and the shock—as well as the hint of anger—in her eyes. "That long?" she breathed. And then her hands clenched into fists, and she took one step forward, closing the distance between them. He grabbed her wrists before she could start pounding on his chest. "You sneaky . . . conniving . . . yogurt-for-brains . . . JELLYFISH!" She kicked at his shin to emphasize the last insult.

Lucky him. He had to deal with a moderately pissed off Lina, and he felt his own self-control fray. "What was I supposed to do?" he demanded. "Tell me honestly. If I hadn't hid the fact that I was in love with you, what would you have done? Tell me that I should have done this—" Gourry pulled her close by her still captured wrists and kissed her, venting pent up frustration and longing. He could feel her heart thudding against him and he broke off the kiss abruptly, leaving her gasping. "Tell me I should have done that ages ago, so I can be just as pissed as you that I've wasted so much time following you around like a eunuch—" He took a deep breath, trying to get himself back under control. In more ways than one. His body was practically throbbing from all the stop and go messages it was receiving.

Lina shuddered against him, her face contorted with a mixture of anger overlaid with the frustration of unsatisfied lust. If they kept this up, it was probably only going to get uglier. Given Lina's reactions to him, he was fairly certain that if he started kissing her again, they would probably end up in a tangle of sweaty limbs and discarded clothes here on the floor of the furnace room. And while his body demanded that he go for it, he forced himself to pull back. He wanted more than raw sex that happened because they were both too frustrated and upset to think straight. Using each other to satisfy long-suppressed sexual urges was a far cry from being lovers. There was no way he was going to settle for less.

Taking another deep breath, Gourry took a step back, giving them both some space. "So now you know what I want," he said, struggling to keep his voice even. "What do we do now?"

"I'm still trying to figure out," she started slowly, avoiding his eyes, "how a guy with tarter-sauce for brains could possibly hide something like this from me for years!" she finished angrily, her hands balling up into fists. "It has to be without a doubt the most ignominious thing to ever happen to me!"

There was no way he was going to let something like that pass. "That's easy, Lina," he replied with a dangerous edge to his voice. "You spend too much time in your head thinking about things like money and power and you ignore anything that doesn't bring one or the other. You put up this front like you're really stronger than you are. It's like you're testing yourself, trying to see if you can measure up to some unreachable standard. And feelings that have nothing to do with reaching that ambition just get in the way. So you ignore them." He took a deep breath and raked his hand through his hair, more to prevent himself from reaching out to touch Lina than anything else. He had the simultaneous urges to shake some sense into her and to push her down to the floor . . . Gourry took another step away from her, needing more distance. "If you pretend you don't have needs, someone might take advantage of you," he rasped.

"Someone?" she asked with a hard edge to her voice. "Or you?"

"It had better be me," he growled, balling his hands up into fists. "I'll kill anyone else who tries it."

"You think you could take advantage of me," she said in a flat tone that was clearly a challenge. It was obvious she thought he would back down.

And normally, he probably would. But not this time. Need for distance be damned!

Before she could react, he had her in his arms, snugged up against his body as he ran a hand down along her spine in a way that had her shuddering. "Do you want me to?" he asked, throwing her challenge right back in her teeth.

Again a parade of emotions flickered across her face: annoyance, lust, confusion, hope, and a giddy joy. "Right now," she said as she took a deep breath, "I want to take the bath you've been pestering me to take all day." Her eyes took a far-off quality for a moment, and then she gave him a very direct and decisive look. "After that, we'll talk."

Gourry returned her look for several moments. Then he nodded abruptly and slowly released her, letting his hands trail on her body as she pulled away from him. As she passed through the door that hid the narrow hallway between the furnace room and the baths—an entrance for servants, no doubt—she paused. "Gourry?" she asked softly, her back to him. "Do me a favor?"

"Yeah?" he asked, wondering if he had imagined the slight tremble in her voice.

"Get me a fresh change of clothes?" Without waiting for an answer, she plunged into the darkness, and he heard the door snick shut.

Gourry leaned his forehead against the smooth plaster wall, struggling to retain some sense of balance—some sense of reality. It was rather difficult to do, as his mind reviewed their recent conversation for every nuance of her posture, her voice, her gestures, looking for clues that would tell him how to proceed from here. Annoyance, lust, fear, and joy, among others. But which one dominated? And which one was behind her need for space? And what was the proper counter to her retreat?

Gourry smiled to himself in the darkness when the answer occurred to him in a sudden flash of intuition. He was not a methodical thinker, like Lina. His strength was swordplay, where several cues from his opponent's posture and breathing indicated move and proper counter. He could not afford to stop and question his judgment. Right now, he knew that he should fetch Lina a clean change of clothes. But rather than going toward her rooms, he headed for a suite of rooms he had explored a couple of days earlier.

Although the former owner of this mansion had been childless, it certainly had not been for lack of trying. Gourry had found several rooms that had obviously been decorated for and by females, complete with wardrobes bulging with clothes that were in surprisingly good condition. He chose one of the more tasteful rooms, and after a few moments of searching, he found exactly what he was looking for. He considered the cut of the diaphanous dark green silk gown as he held it up to the light. It was a bit too long, but other than that, he thought it would fit Lina rather well. He smiled to himself. Yes, this was the perfect counter to her retreat.

After leaving the gown in the antechamber to the baths for Lina to find, he found himself back in the library. With a sigh, he picked up the plate he had set on top of one of the shelves. All that remained on the plate were a few small crumbs of flaky pastry and streaks of honey. Gourry swiped a finger across the honey and then licked it off, remembering the feel of Lina's lips, that feeling of coming so close to the edge of control . . .

In an effort to distract himself, Gourry dropped the plate on the desk he had dragged over to the couch and reached to pour himself the rest of the sake when the book Lina had been reading caught his eye. It was perched rather precariously on the edge of the couch, so he picked it up to move it onto the desk, his eyes casually scanning the page as he did so. He knew how to read, although he generally did not enjoy it, finding it dull and tedious. This time, a couple words in the margins caught his attention, and he found himself bringing the book closer to the lamp in order to read a bit more carefully.

After the third time through the passage, his brain finally fully processed what his eyes were seeing. His first thought was that somebody must really love him. Why else would he decide that it was time to seduce Lina when she just happened to be reading smut? His second thought was to wonder if reading graphic descriptions of sex was catalyst or cause of her reaction to his seduction. The first he could happily live with. The second though . . . he had meant what he said. He wanted to be her lover, not a convenient way to scratch an itch.

No. The way Lina had looked at him . . . the fact that she had sent him away . . . the troubled expression on her face when she asked him if he wanted sex . . . none of that indicated she was simply looking for something so crass as a convenient fuck.

The sound of the library door opening interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see Lina furtively slipping into the room. She stopped dead when she saw him, her eyes flicking between his face and the book that still lay open in his lap.

She was wearing the gown. The dark green silk looked almost black in the faint light, but it fit her like a second skin, straining across her breasts and hugging her hips. A slit on one side exposed a leg from her hip down. The skirt was definitely too long for her, and the extra length pooled at her feet, but somehow added to the effect rather than detracting.

Gourry stared at her, breathless, taking in everything. The tangle of wet hair that lay on her shoulders, leaving dark wet stains on the silk. The way the neckline dipped low to accentuate the swell of her breasts. The look of utter panic on her face as she swallowed hard.

"What are you doing here?" she accused.

"I could ask the same question," he purred in response.

She flushed and could not quite stop her eyes from flicking down to the book.

"Let me guess," he offered. "You just wanted to check this one part, right?" His eyes glanced down and scanned the page. "How long have you been reading stuff like this?" he asked, looking up at her.

"Stuff like what?" she asked slowly.

His eyes returned to the page. "'Slowly he slipped his fingers—'" he started reading.

"Okay, okay!" Lina interrupted, blushing bright red. "I get the gist!" She rushed over to him and snatched the book out of his hand, slamming it shut.

Gourry snaked an arm around her, pulling her onto his lap even as she dropped the book on the desk. "So," he asked as he ran a hand along the exposed skin of her arm, "how long?"

Lina shifted in his arms so that she was straddling his legs, putting them at eye level. "You're not going to let this go, are you," she said with a glare.

"No," he responded firmly, "I'm not. I've come clean and answered all your questions tonight. I want you to answer this one for me."

"Fine," she huffed. "Four months, if you must know. Give or take."

Four months . . . Gourry scanned his memory, trying to see if there was anything that stuck out at him from that time. The only thing that came to mind was the time they had shared a room, and she had spent half the night sick in the bathroom. He remembered for two reasons: first, because he had been really worried about her. The other was because he had loaned her a tunic to wear as a nightshirt, and she had never returned it, even though he had asked a couple times. Although to be honest, he had not insisted, because he liked the thought of her wearing his shirt to bed.

"Wasn't that around the time you got sick off of something you ate?" he asked.

Lina blushed again. "You remember that?" she asked, sounding both surprised and guilty.

"Sure," he answered, watching her reaction closely. There was something more than a bit off . . . "That's when I loaned you the tunic you never gave back."

"I'll never ever understand," she said slowly while she deliberately avoided meeting his eyes, "why you can't ever remember anything that's important, yet you remember stupid things like me getting sick in some stupid hick town!"

Given her attitude, Gourry was starting to have serious doubts that Lina had actually been sick. Thinking back to that event, what other possible interpretation was there . . . ?

"Ah," he said, slapping his fist against an open palm as the pieces suddenly fell together. "I get it now! You weren't really sick, were—"

"I was sick," she interrupted. "Sick to death of you treating me like a kid sister," she growled, looking down and hiding her face behind her hair.

"And that's what made you run off to the bathroom and slam the door in my face?" he asked, not bothering to hide his skepticism.

Lina's only response was to growl at him, warning him to back off.

It was a relatively tame response, given her normal mode of operations, and he found that he could not resist pushing her farther. "Did you think about me?" he breathed in her ear.

"Yes!" she hissed resentfully. "I lay on that bed beside you, aching, and imagined myself touching you," she ran her hands up his arms and down over his shirt before jerking it up aggressively and slipping her hands underneath to explore his chest. "I thought about how it would feel to kiss you, to feel your hands on me . . ." Her breathing was quick and shallow. With an effort, she pulled her hands away and took a deep breath. "And I ran away from you because I was convinced you saw me as a little sister," she vented bitterly.

Her touch had him reeling physically, bringing him quickly back to that dangerous edge where thought shut down and the body took over. At the same time, her words hit him like physical blows, and he struggled to understand how she could seduce him with her touch while picking a fight. "Four months," he said slowly, failing to keep the edge out of his voice. "I'll ask you again, Lina. If I hadn't hid my feelings, if before four months ago, you knew exactly how I felt—if you knew how many times I've dreamt of having you in my arms, in my bed . . . what would you have done?"

She plucked at his shirt and avoided his eyes. "I don't know," she finally said softly.

"I do," he said shortly, tilting her chin up to force her to meet his eyes. Somehow he had to make her understand, he had to find the right words to ease the hurt that she covered by picking a fight. "You would have felt awkward. You would have tried to hide it because you cared, but it would have been there. I've played the role of over-protective big brother partly because you put me there."

She opened her mouth. Shut it. Considered. Her eyes narrowed. "Partly," she said flatly.

He shrugged. "I'm your protector."

"What's that got to do with anything?" she demanded.

"Because being a big-brother type kept you safe." It drew the boundary quite clearly. He knew exactly what he could get away with—what could be passed off as sibling familiarity instead of something else. Apparently it had drawn the boundary too well, given how oblivious she had seemed to his attempts at seduction over the past few days.

"Safe? How?" she sounded rather skeptical.

"It kept you safe from me," he clarified. "Safe from a relationship you weren't ready for."

"I don't need a protector," she said testily. "Stop treating me like a little kid!"

"You do need a protector," he shot back. She got into more trouble than anyone he had ever known, and he had been swinging a sword as a mercenary for years before he met her. "It has nothing to do with your age!"

"Give me a break!" she shouted, jumping up from his lap and nearly tripping on the hem of the gown.

In a flash of intuition, he understood, and inwardly cursed himself for a fool. He had been trying to explain things to Lina with words—never his strong suit. And she saw his attempts at explanation, his efforts to hold himself back as proof that he did not really want her, in spite of what he had said. It was clear that she was not really thinking rationally—not that he could blame her for that, because he doubted he was fully rational either. And it was no wonder: too many strong emotions overlaid with hormones . . . But he knew what he needed to do to fix the situation.

Before she could react, he had scooped her up into his arms, and he carried her across the library.

Her reaction was exactly what he had expected, even if it was not what he had hoped for. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she screeched while pounding on his chest as hard as she could. "Put me down this instant, Gourry Gabriev!"

He winced a bit, and tightened his grip around her so that she could not squirm free, but otherwise ignored the blows and the questions that she continued to rain down on him. None of this was working out the way he had pictured, but once again, he knew in his gut that this was the right course.

Finally, he got them to his room. Moonlight streamed in through the western window, lighting the room with a pearly glow. He dropped Lina on his bed, and then loomed over her with his arms on either side of her—not to pin her; she could have escaped if she really wanted—to get her full attention.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked again, enunciating each syllable slowly and distinctly in a tone that threatened death and destruction.

He bared his teeth at her, the feral grin of a predator that had finally cornered its dangerous prey. "Wrong question, Lina," he said just as slowly. "It's not what I'm doing, it's what I'm not doing."

"What are you not doing, then?" she asked angrily, her tone no longer merely threatening death and destruction, but promising it.

"I'm not treating you like a kid," he purred, "and I'm not protecting you from me." Gourry shed his self-imposed role of safe over-protective older brother and gave himself over to instinct and desire—focused solely on the seduction of Lina Inverse.

With mouth and hands, he tried to convey what his words had failed: that he wanted to be her lover, not the big-brother-type sidekick; that he wanted to protect her because he loved her desperately—so much so that he would willingly follow her into the blackest depths of hell; that his greatest fear was wanting too much from her and driving her away.

And then all that existed was this moment. The feel of her bare skin as his hands slid over her body, learning her contours and discovering what had only been imagined before. The sensation of her exploring his body first with gently sweeping fingertips that made him shiver and raised gooseflesh, and then with mouth and tongue. The sound of their breathing—sometimes coming in tortured gasps, sometimes in long shuddering sighs. The sight of her naked body sprawled out in his bed, leeched of all color in the gleaming moonlight and sheened with sweat, and oh so responsive to his touch. The scent of her arousal spiking when his fingers slipped between her thighs.

There was no thought. Only the now. This moment. This touch. This sensation.

This pain.

The sense of being in the moment shattered, and conscious awareness returned with a vengeance. Gourry found himself over Lina, his torso propped up on his elbows, and his hips were pressed against hers, while her inner walls clenched painfully tight around his erection. If it was hurting him this much, what was it doing to her? He glanced down at her face. Her eyes were screwed shut and her jaw was clenched. Her hands clamped down on his upper arms, and she was holding her breath.

Gourry held himself very still. "Lina?" he asked softly.

She shook her head minutely and hissed.

"Lina?" he repeated. "Just try to relax." He moved slightly to brush her hair out of her face.

She hissed again, and tensed. If anything, she felt even tighter. He wondered how he had managed to get inside in the first place. "Just—" she gasped. "Just . . . don't move, okay?" she bit out from between clenched teeth.

He could feel her trying to relax, forcing clenched jaw to release and clamped hands to open. He held his breath, not wanting to do anything else that would cause her more pain. But when he felt her inner walls spasm around him, he twitched involuntarily, causing her to cry out.

"I said don't move!" she shouted as she arched her back, which of course pushed him deeper inside and caused her to cry out in pain yet again.

He did not bother trying to defend himself. He just concentrated on not moving, and tried not to think about how tight and painful it was being inside her. As bad as it was for him, he was sure it was worse for her.

Finally, she sighed carefully, trying not to move. "Try it now?" she suggested tentatively.

He pulled back slightly and then pushed in slowly, but it was no good. She clenched up again, and he could feel himself going soft. With a quiet sigh of his own, he pulled out and rolled over next to her, pulling her against his chest and stroking her back.

"I thought it was only supposed to hurt at first," she said angrily, her voice muffled against his chest.

"It does only hurt at first," he replied quietly. "It gets better after a while."

"But it didn't," she protested, pushing herself back to glare at him. "It felt like I was going to split apart! It still hurts!"

"What did you expect?" he asked, trying to sound reasonable. "It's your first time, right?"

She ducked her head against his chest again. "It's like the universe's idea of a joke," she railed bitterly. "One of the most powerful sorceresses of the age, trapped inside a child-sized body, and the big dumb giant. Together they're the perfect team: the Slayers of the most powerful monsters of the world! But they're too mismatched to be compatible in bed—"

His temper flared, and before she could resist, he'd rolled her onto her back, pinning her arms to the bed at the wrists and holding her down with his hips over hers. "This has nothing to do with your size," he rasped angrily.

"Then what is it?" she challenged with a glare.

Gourry resisted the urge to either pull out his hair or shake some sense into her. "It's your first time," he bit out from between clenched teeth. "Of course it's gonna hurt! Everyone's first time hurts!"

"But—" she clenched her lips together in a thin line, biting off the rest.

"But what?" he prompted.

She glared up at him, and then oddly enough, she blushed and looked away. "That's not the way it happens in . . ." She trailed off.

"In . . . ?" he prompted yet again.

"It's not the way it happens in anything I've read, okay?" she said in a rush. "It's only supposed to hurt for a minute, and then it's supposed to start feeling good. And I've never heard about it hurting so bad that people have had to stop," she accused.

Gourry let go of her wrists and rolled onto his side, suppressing the urge to laugh. "Lina, it may happen that way in smut, but real life doesn't work that way."

"Since when do you read smut?" she demanded in a tone of incredulous disbelief.

"I don't need to read it," he replied with a snort. "I used to be a mercenary, remember? Mercs spend most of their down-time bragging about their swords—and I'm not just talking about the ones they swing. And to hear them talk, both are the same size, the same hardness—"

"Huge purple cocks and fountains of jism," Lina interrupted with a look of disgust.

Her tone and choice of words made it impossible to suppress the laugh this time. "Standard mercenary fare," he admitted. "I'll grant the story in the margin of your book was much more . . ." he coughed, looking for the right word, "tasteful, but it was still a story. In real life, the pain never goes away after a few minutes. Not the first time. Not the first few times."

"I'm not afraid of the pain," she interrupted, as she rolled on to her front, her arms bent at the elbow so that her hands rested just by her shoulders and her cheek lay against the sheets. "I expected it, although I really didn't think it would hurt like that . . . " She trailed off and then sighed. "I didn't think it would hurt you, too," she said sadly.

Gourry shrugged and pushed her hair off her back to run a finger along her spine. "Sex always hurts at first. Your muscles aren't used to moving that way. And like any type of activity, it takes repetition and practice before it feels natural."

"I suppose you know this from experience," she said in a tone he could not quite decipher.

"Mmm, yeah," he admitted, wondering how she would react.

A flicker of annoyance passed through her eyes. "You know," she said slowly with a bit of a grimace, "it's bad enough that I actually swallowed the big-brother routine hook, line, and sinker. But the fact that you know more about this than me is really galling!"

"I know more than you about sword-play too, but that's never seemed to bother you," he pointed out.

"That's different," she protested. "Sword-play is about training your body, not—"

"And sex isn't?" he interrupted while pointedly looking down at their naked bodies.

Lina opened her mouth. Closed it. Took a breath to say something, and then apparently thought the better of it and let out her breath in a sigh.

"Would it make you feel better if I offered to teach you?" he asked, teasing her.

"Teach me sword-play?" she replied, deliberately misinterpreting him.

He shrugged. "Why not? It wouldn't hurt you to improve your form, you know. You spend too much time in your head. You could really benefit from doing more things with your muscles."

She gave him a sly look. "I don't know," she said with mock hesitation. "Will it bring me money or power?"

"Maybe," he responded equably. "But it'll definitely give me plenty of opportunities to take advantage of you."

Her eyes clouded, and she turned her head down to face the bed. "I didn't think you'd actually do it," she mumbled against the sheets.

"But you wanted me to." He was sure of it.

"Yeah," she admitted. "But I didn't think it would turn out like this." She sighed bitterly. "I really wanted to find out if eternity is actually blue," she said with disappointment.

"Awuh?" Gourry asked, having completely lost the thread of the conversation.

"You know," Lina said impatiently, "the part where we simultaneously explode in bliss and float among the stars."

Oh. For once, Gourry knew exactly what she was talking about, and he gave her a wicked grin as he nudged her over onto her back. "I don't know about stars or eternity," he murmured as he slid his hand over her breast, down to her abdomen and then lower still. "But I think I can manage the bliss part."

"But—" she gasped as his questing fingers traced the muscles of her inner thigh. "I thought—"

"Shh," he soothed as he propped himself up on an elbow and took a moment to savor the fact that she was in his arms, in his bed. "I told you, Lina," he said quietly, smugly, "I want to be your lover. Compared to that the sex is just a bonus."

Any response she intended to make was lost when he covered her lips with his own and gave her a thorough demonstration of the difference between lovers and simple sex.

******************

Gourry was not sure how long he had been asleep. The faint gray pre-dawn light suggested that it had only been a couple of hours at most. The faint susurration of cloth against flesh, followed by the light padding of bare feet against the floor were all the clues he needed to guess that Lina was answering a call of nature. He rolled over, intending to go back to sleep, but found himself staring out the window instead, listening to the chirps and songs of early morning birds, and replaying the memory of the night before. Why was it that so many men waxed poetic about the joys of deflowering virgins? It was like it reflected some deep-seated male need to mark and claim. He had to admit it, knowing that he was the first to touch Lina made him feel . . . it was indescribable. It had made him feel alive and aware of everything around him—every sound, every sensation washed over and through him. At the same time, his focus had narrowed to the point where it was impossible to think of past or future. All that existed was the moment. But the actual moment of penetration, that instant when virginity was truly taken . . . there was nothing enjoyable about it. He could not understand how men could eagerly subject themselves to that kind of pain and still keep it up long enough . . .

The lovemaking had been wonderful beyond his ability to put into words. But there had been no pleasure in that moment when he had forced himself inside of her. Not for either of them.

The soft snick of the door unlatching broke his train of thought, and he turned in time to see Lina slip furtively into his room. Now that she had returned, he realized that the reason he had not been able to fall back asleep had little to do with the memory of the previous evening, and much more to do with the fact that he had not been sure that she would come back. Not to his room; not to his bed. He felt a surge of possessiveness when he realized that she was wearing his tunic—not the one he had loaned her months ago, but the one he had worn the previous day. It was way too big for her: the sleeves that hit well above his elbow hung closer to her wrists, and the neckline was so wide for her that it draped across her torso at an angle, exposing one of her shoulders and the swell of one of her breasts. She stopped at the door when she noticed him looking at her, and unaccountably, she flushed, looking slightly guilty.

"Is that my tunic?" he asked, more as something to say than for any other reason. Maybe he just wanted to hear her admit that it was.

Lina looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Who's else would it be?" she asked acidly.

"I guess that was kinda a stupid question," he said with a self-deprecating grin, sitting up and running his hand through his hair.

"Kinda," she agreed curtly, avoiding his eyes as she crossed the room to the window to stare outside.

"I like seeing you in my tunic." He meant to say the words lightly to break whatever mood was riding her, but instead, they came out in a husky tone, almost as a verbal caress.

It startled her enough to make her turn around and meet his eyes. There was nothing soft in her gaze. Her eyes were hard iron gates that kept him from seeing what she was thinking. Her face was a mask that placed unacceptable distance between them.

"Hunh-unh," he grunted, reaching out to grab her arm and pull her towards him. She struggled against him futilely, and winced hard when he finally sat her on his lap. She tried to hide the wince behind a glare.

"Let me go," she growled. He could feel her sense of presence shift, signaling that she was reaching for her magic.

"No way," he growled back. "Get used to it."

It was enough to break her concentration. She stared up at him incredulously, and he saw something in her eyes slip.

"I told you, Lina," he said intently, pushing her hair out of her face and stroking a finger along the side of her neck. "I'm not protecting you from me anymore." Without waiting for a response, he claimed her lips with his own. She threw herself into the kiss with an intensity that surprised him on one level, but was completely expected on another. Things were progressing quite nicely until Lina shifted in his lap to straddle his legs. At that point, he felt her tense up and break their kiss to hide her face against his chest.

"This sucks," she muttered under her breath as she rested her hands against his chest.

Unsure how to respond to that statement, Gourry said nothing.

"It hurts if I try to stand up or sit down, or even just move too quickly, and as if that's not enough, I feel like I have a hangover." She glared at him accusatorily.

"And . . . ?" he prompted.

"I didn't drink anywhere near enough to have anything remotely like a hangover," she said slowly and deliberately, clenching her teeth.

Gourry sighed and pushed her back so that he could see her face. "The hangover is easy: water and some more sleep will take care of it, no problem. And if you're sore, just use your magic," he said, striving for his most reasonable tone.

It was clear that Lina was in no mood for reasonableness. With a hiss, she pushed away from him, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. Without really understanding why, he reached out to stop her, ignoring her warning snarl. Her snarl turned into a growl that was quickly followed by a cold burst of air that pushed him over the closest side of the bed. He felt a cold hand clench around his heart.

"Do you regret it?" he asked as he pulled himself up off the floor, his voice sounding unnatural to his own ears.

Lina went very still, her vibrant hair forming a curtain that obscured his face from him.

The cold hand clenched even tighter. "Lina?" he said, willing his voice to sound normal, and failing miserably.

"Don't be an idiot," she said acidly. "You should know me better than that." She shook her hair out of her face and glared up at him.

The tight fist around his heart was gone so quickly, he almost felt lightheaded. She was right. He should know better than that. Lina Inverse threw herself heart and soul into everything that she did. 'Regret' was not really a part of her vocabulary.

Then her eyes softened. "Besides," she said archly, "who seduced whom last night, hmm?"

This time when he tried to pull her close, she did not resist. "That's easy," he said as he cupped her cheek and watched her lean into the caress. "I seduced you, of course."

"Oh, really," she challenged.

"Yes, really," he replied firmly. "And at wasn't just last night. I've been seducing you for days. You only just noticed last night."

"So," she said softly after a brief pause. "I'm in your arms. I'm in your bed. Now what?"

"Stay with me," he breathed, not able to actually voice the words.

It was not the answer she wanted, he could tell that right away. But it was enough, for now. He knew that, too.

******************

The next time Gourry awoke, the sun was streaming in through his window. He sat up abruptly, startled that he had slept so long, and even more surprised to find that Lina was gone. Usually she needed more sleep than him. Although, to be honest, he had been going on very little sleep recently, and the sleep he had gotten had been full of lust-induced dreams that were not exactly conducive to rest. Maybe it was not so surprising that he had slept more than half the day away.

Gourry pushed himself up from bed and started to get dressed. It did not take him long to realize that his tunic was still missing, but it surprised him that she had also bothered to pick up the silk gown as well. Tidiness was not a virtue associated with Lina Inverse. Unfortunately, this meant that Lina had effectively confiscated both his spare tunic and his regular one. And while he was able to raid the wardrobes for Lina, he had yet to find any male clothing that came close to fitting someone of his size.

His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had missed a couple of meals. He could worry about missing tunics later. Food came first.

After raiding the storeroom and fixing himself something to take the edge off his hunger, he headed for the library to see if Lina was hungry and if she had finally finished those books she wanted to read.

She glanced up at him as he entered the library, but then turned her attention back to what she was doing. He had expected her to be reading, or maybe even crating books. Instead, he found her kneeling on a chair and hunched over a desk that was covered with sheets of parchment, writing quickly in that cramped script she tended to use. There were crumpled pieces scattered around the floor as well. It seemed that she had not bothered stopping by her room. The silk gown was tossed negligently over the arm of the couch, half-trailing on the floor, and she was still wearing his tunic. It hung off one shoulder as before. Gourry felt his breath hitch in his throat as he drifted over to her, all thoughts of dinner forgotten.

Lina smiled up at him when he leaned over her to kiss her neck, but then she gently pushed him away and continued writing furiously, only pausing to rifle through the scattered parchment and examine something that had a ton of arcane symbols on it, before returning to what she was writing. Gourry felt more than a bit miffed at her behavior. Why was it that the only time she exhibited this kind of ruthless single-mindedness was around books and parchment?

Muttering under his breath, he started picking up the crumpled parchment she had tossed onto the floor, planning to put it in the kindling pile for use in starting fires. As he flattened out the first piece, his eyes caught a particular phrase that nearly had him choking. He glanced up at Lina, but she seemed oblivious to him. Looking back down at the parchment, there was no mistake. There, in Lina's distinct handwriting, was a coarse sex story that could have easily been told around any merc campfire. He scanned through her other discards and found more of the same. Not all of them were as crude as the first one—some were far worse, some were just tasteless, and some seemed straight out of trashy romance—but every single one was some story involving some type of sexual encounter. Gourry stared at Lina as if she were a complete stranger. He was not sure if he should be thrilled, concerned, or terrified, and at the moment, he felt some combination of all three.

"Lina?" he asked, his voice sounding strangled even to him.

She mumbled something incoherent that he chose to interpret as a reply.

"Why are you writing this kind of stuff?" he demanded, shoving the first one he had read under her face.

She glanced at the writing and then wrinkled her nose. "That one's horrific," she declared, sounding disgusted, as she snatched the parchment out of his hand, crumpled it back into a ball and tossed it onto the floor, before returning her attention to what she was writing.

"And this one's better?" Gourry challenged as he waved another in front of her, determined to get her attention.

"The ones on the floor are there for a reason, Gourry," she replied dismissively with a shrug, before turning back to her work.

"Lina," he growled, "you still haven't—"

She held her left hand up imperiously, a silent command for silence. Fine. Gourry bit off what he was saying and folded his hands over his chest. He would give her a moment, but he refused to leave until he got an explanation, even if it turned out to be one he could not understand.

For several moments, the only sound in the library was the scratch of Lina's pen against parchment, or the rustle as she searched among her notes. Finally, she dropped her pen and stretched her hands over her head.

Gourry cleared his throat. The sound startled her, and she swiveled around in her chair. "Are you still here?" she asked in surprise.

"Why are you writing smut, Lina?" he repeated his earlier question.

She had the grace to blush. "I'm not," she said quickly. "At least, not exactly," she said, cutting him off when he took a deep breath to protest. "Does it bother you?" she asked quietly.

He shoved his hand through his hair, trying to figure out a coherent answer, because he wanted to shout out 'Yes!' and 'No' at the same time. He took a deep breath. "Honestly?" he asked. "The general thought of you writing smut is kinda . . ." he trailed off looking for the right word. "Well, it doesn't bother me," he finally said, the words sounding lame in his ears. "This, on the other hand," he rifled through the stack in his hand until he found the one that would have made even hardened mercs uneasy and tossed it at her. "This one bothers me. A lot. Why would you write this kind of—"

"Perverted garbage?" Lina interrupted even as she dropped it to the floor with obvious distaste.

"I think that one goes way past 'perverted garbage,' Lina. It's more like . . . diseased filth." Even that seemed too mild.

Lina sighed. "I told you," she repeated, "I didn't write these."

"They're in your handwriting, Lina," he pointed out, not even bothering to hide his disbelief. He was not that stupid.

"I know that!" she shouted, sliding off the chair to stand in front of him. "Will you just shut up and listen for a moment, bait-for-brains?" She took a deep breath, and then blew her bangs out of her face. "I didn't write most of these. I 'stole' them."

"Stole?" he echoed, shaking his head in an effort to understand. "That still doesn't explain why they're all in your hand," he restated, stubbornly.

She looked at him askance. "You told me yourself," she said softly. "Real life isn't the same as smut."

"Don't try to change the subject," he warned.

"I'm not!" she shot back. "I'm trying to explain all this," she swept her hand over the table to indicate all the assorted writings. She took another deep breath. "After last night—and especially after this morning—I started wondering what it would be like if all smut was like real life. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like something I could do. And I wasn't having any luck getting back to sleep, so I came down here to work on developing a spell that could pull it off. I just needed some samples for the spell to target."

"All of it?" Gourry asked incredulously. Mercenary camps would take quite some adjustment without exaggerated sex stories around the fire.

"Well," Lina hedged. "That's what I thought at first. But once I was sure I could do it . . . well, the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. As much as I think I'd be doing a service by ridding the world of abominations like this one," she nudged the story that had bothered him so much with her foot, "it's not my place to decide what people can and cannot read, or what kind of stories people can and cannot tell."

"So," Gourry said slowly. "You didn't write these."

"Not these ones," Lina agreed. "I just—"

"That means you did write some, though?" he interrupted, cutting her off before she could launch some detailed explanation of how exactly she had 'stolen' all those stories.

Lina blushed again, and her eyes flicked to the table. Then she stared down at her bare feet for a moment before meeting his gaze. "Two," she said shortly.

"Two?"

"One of them, I plan to slip into the gaps left behind by all the stories I 'stole,'" she explained. "It won't replace all of them, but at least there'll be some realistic smut out there, so people won't think sex is just crude fucking with huge purple cocks," she said sounding ill, "or that it's all magical pleasure with two lovers discovering the color of eternity, regardless of whose first time it is." She muttered something indistinct under her breath.

"And the other?" he asked.

She turned her back to him, and picked up a sheaf of parchment, rolling the sheets up into a scroll, before turning to face him. "The other one is for you," she said softly, pressing the scroll into his hands. "I'll make dinner tonight," she added, and then she hurried out of the library.

Gourry watched Lina flee, and then stared down at the roll of parchment she had stuffed into his hands. This one was for him? She knew he generally hated to read, but it was also pretty clear to him that she wanted him to see whatever was in here. With a sigh, Gourry sat down steeling himself to suffer through deciphering her cramped handwriting for however many pages there were.

To his surprise, the script Gourry saw when he unrolled the parchment was not Lina's typical style. It was definitely her writing, but instead of scrawling merchant shorthand, it was written in a book hand that was much more pleasing to the eye, not to mention legible. Thankful that he would not have to guess at letters and abbreviations, Gourry applied himself to the task at hand.

"Of all the nights for us to be sharing a room, this was probably the worst possible timing," Lina said clearly, sounding incredibly frustrated.

Gourry jumped, and glanced around him. "Lina?" he asked, wondering if she was playing some type of joke. He had been certain she had left the room, so why . . . ? His confusion increased when after surveying the room, he confirmed that he was the only one there. Maybe he had gotten too much sleep and now he was hearing things? He glanced back down at the parchment and read the first line, nearly dropping the whole sheaf in shock. The first line . . . it said exactly the same thing he had just heard Lina say. Maybe . . . he moved on to the next line.

"I don't know how many times I tried not to sigh, how many times I rolled over . . . trying to get comfortable, trying to ignore the ache between my legs, and most of all, trying to ignore the fact that you were sprawled on the other side of the bed." He heard Lina's voice, thick with frustration and longing, speaking the words on the page, even as his eyes skimmed over them.

He lowered the sheaf of pages and leaned back. Lina knew that he generally hated to read. All he could think was that somehow she had figured out a way to use magic to make this easier for him. But it was more than that. It was like she was sharing her memories with him. He read the rest of it without pausing, letting Lina's voice surround him as she revealed that moment when she had stopped seeing him as partner or brother, the night they had shared a bed four months or so ago. He felt a bit like a voyeur when she described exactly what she had done when he had thought she was puking up her guts, and a more than a bit foolish that he had convinced himself she was sick. If he had been just a bit more aware . . . No. Gourry shook his head. Four months ago, Lina had not been ready. Physically, maybe. But not emotionally. Not intellectually. He was sure of it.

After making a side-trip to his room to stash Lina's story among his personal possessions—and finding his tunic laying in a rumpled heap on the bed—he walked into the dining room, just as Lina was laying a simple chicken dinner on the table.

"Wow, perfect timing," he commented as he sat down, appreciating the luxury of eating without having to cook.

Lina gave him a self-deprecating smile. "Not really," she commented. "I knew how long it would take you to get through that scroll. Shall we eat while it's still hot?"

They were both ravenous, and attacked the food on the table with a vengeance. As he fought with Lina over who would get the last chicken leg, he felt his world settle back into some semblance of normalcy. It had been some time since he had Lina's full attention at mealtimes. She had mostly been reading and eating, rather than participating in their typical feeding frenzy. Food just did not taste as good when he was not fighting her for every morsel.

After the last crumb had been devoured, Lina leaned back in her chair, and heaved a sigh of self-satisfaction. Then she looked over at him, a question clearly in her eyes.

"What?" he asked.

She did not respond immediately. Instead, she leaned her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hands as she stared off into space. "I never thought it'd be like this," she confessed, sounding very serious. "Everything's still the same. But it's different at the same time." She turned her head to look at him. "I'm not making any sense, am I?"

He held his hand out to her, and then rubbed his thumb over her knuckles in a gentle caress. "Makes perfect sense to me," he replied reasonably.

She snorted. "Figures."

They sat in companionable silence; the only sound was the occasional popping from the candles. Gourry watched the way the light flickered over Lina's face as she stared off into space. He sensed there was something else she wanted to say, something that she wanted him to hear, and she was searching for the right words.

"Gourry?" she finally asked.

"Yeah?" he responded as he tugged on her hand, encouraging her to move closer.

She stood and faced him with a wicked gleam in her eye. "Will you make me a promise?" she asked in a husky whisper.

"Depends on the promise," he answered, pulling her onto his lap. He really liked having her there, he decided. It minimized the difference in their height for one thing. But more than that, he loved the way she seemed to melt into his arms. It was a degree of surrender he never would have expected from her. She was the one who always insisted she had no need of a protector. And yet, it was exactly what he had hoped for when he had allowed himself to dream about what it would be like to move their relationship out of the comfortable "friends" category.

"I want you to promise that you'll never protect me from yourself again," Lina said seriously, tilting her head back slightly to meet his eyes.

His arms tightened around her in response. "Do you know what you're asking?" He had to make sure she understood.

"Yes," she replied without any hint of hesitation. "Promise me."

"Come to my bed, Lina," he purred in response, as he let his desire dictate behavior. "Come to my bed," he repeated while he let his hands roam at will over her body, causing her to gasp, "and I promise you won't be disappointed."
- 1
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The Slow Seduction of Lina Inverse

The Slow Seduction of Lina Inverse