Chapter Text
The sky over Zou is flecked with bright, countless stars. Their glimmers turn it into a sea of liquid diamonds, gently rippling and joining the vivid, colourful fireworks streaks. Nami relishes that view without wasting time wondering whether it’s caused by the rush of emotion she has been experiencing for days. Her tankard of rum is held high, her smile shines with the distant lights. She feels unburdened, powerful, free.
And enriched. Not with money, but with life.
As the gentle wind brushes through her hair, she savours the grass beneath her feet. Bonfires crackle, showering the clearing with warm amber sparks. While she breathes in the balsamic scent of trees and flowers, the fragrant aroma of grilled fish and freshly baked bread delights her senses. Amidst roars of joy, music, and laughter, someone sweeps her into yet another frenzied dance. Maybe Wanda. Or Carrot. There’s quite a difference between the two. Confusing them should be impossible, a thought that makes her burst out laughing. Laughing without restraint, against the breeze blowing across her flushed face.
Only when the last spin ends, leaving her with a better view of a quieter corner of the clearing, does she stop to catch her breath, distracted by a quiet, solid presence.
Zoro isn’t looking at her. He’s in profile, his ever-present katanas gleaming by his side under the restless night lights, his thin lips curved into a faint, almost melancholic smile. Nami believes Chopper is the one he’s unconsciously addressing that gesture – and maybe even its source. The swordsman takes a sip from the tankard in his left hand, then says something the small group of young Minks seated around him doesn’t seem to welcome. She immediately realises what’s going on. One of them has been cheating, and he, like a watchful, especially protective guardian, must have tipped off the little doctor. A squirrel Mink reveals the two cards left in his hand with a guilty look, before dropping them on the grass. The sight fills her with a surge of proud, amused approval for his meddling.
Zoro’s smile now carries a trace of smug sarcasm. Nami loses sight of it for a few moments, as two people, entwined in a lively acrobatic dance, move past her to avoid being swept away by Kidd’s mechanical arm, busy to inveigh against a giant. When her view clears again, she sees that the swordsman has turned his gaze away from the young Minks sitting on the grass. His unscarred eye is fixed on her. His pressed lips still bear the imprint of a smile. For a moment, in the brief flash of light from the fire flickering in his pupil, she thinks she glimpses another veil of melancholy – less obvious than before, yet more piercing.
Nami halts in her tracks. Zoro’s expression, now vaguely questioning, makes her realise she has drifted away from the crowd of pirates celebrating around the bonfire behind her to approach him. Maybe she’s only imagining what she truly wishes to see, or maybe it’s the many night lights, blending into continuous flashes, that are to blame. But she senses a silent curiosity in him, an implicit expectation urging her not to stop, to draw closer. The thrill of the moment pushes her forward.
“What’s got into you? Has your memory just dredged up the amount of some unpaid loan?”
“In your dreams, maybe.”
Nami curls the corner of her mouth upwards, amused by his quick retort, by his sharp voice contrasting with the smile in his gaze. Now that she’s closer to him, the air around them feels both cooler and warmer at the same time, as if simply reaching him has filled her with a pleasant, tantalising tension – a familiar partner, never quite fully embraced, but which now breathes in perfect harmony with her.
“Fancy a dance?”
Chopper’s too busy playing with his Mink friends to notice, but she’s certain that even he, if he were to look up from his cards towards the swordsman, would struggle to keep a straight face. Because Zoro’s expression is so blank that he seems dazed. And is lack of reaction unwittingly implies far too much.
“You’re talking to the ghost at my back, aren’t you?”
Nami hides a mocking grimace behind the tankard she raises to her lips, before shaking her head with feigned seriousness. She knew full well that he would turn down her invitation, but that didn’t stop her from indulging in the irresistible pleasure of catching him off guard. “I was talking to you, but if you don’t fancy it, no problem.”
Zoro scrutinises her intently. The lack of a retort from her prompts him to brace himself rather than relax, something which amuses and flatters the navigator. For the first time since they set out on their journey together towards the One Piece, she doesn’t even care about the stares of others, or the possible conclusions that the unwitting spectators might draw if she decided to take things further. All that matters is that sense of freedom and power she has felt enveloping her for days – consecutive days of celebration, where melancholy has given way to a well-deserved happiness. And the realisation that Zoro, after just as many days of rest to recover from the injuries sustained in the most important battle of his life, is fully healed.
“To be honest, all this commotion is starting to get on my nerves. I’d like to go somewhere quieter,” Nami keeps looking him straight in the eye, beyond the strongholds he puts up whenever she gets close to him, “and secluded.”
“Why don’t you just go, then?”
“Because I want to do it with you.”
In the brief moment following her words, her cheeks flush so fiercely that she hopes the night lights aren’t bright enough for Zoro to notice. But in the next moment, she’s distracted by the thought that maybe it’s he, between the two of them, who has blushed. Because she sees him suddenly part his lips, look away and drink from the tankard he seemed to have forgotten about, almost without thinking. Nami sets down her now-empty tankard, leaving it on the grass. Her unexpected awkwardness retreats into itself, spurring her to seize the moment, to close the distance between them.
“Come on, don’t be daft.”
The faint electric shock that runs up her arm the moment she grabs his wrist drives her to act on instinct, to lead the swordsman away with her, far from Chopper and the rest of the Minks, who are busy playing cards. Without slowing down, she pushes through the crowd of people who accidentally block her path as they raise a toast to the sky, Franky striking dubious poses surrounded by a throng of admirers, Bartolomeo shouting drunkenly arm-in-arm with Cavendish, and Hajrudin lost in a solitary dance, his immense bulk unconsciously offering her a protective wall against prying eyes.
Until Zoro’s voice, drowned out by the bursts of fireworks and the laughter behind them, finally reaches her. “Where the heck are you taking me?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Nami keeps walking without letting go of his wrist, her pace brisk, her voice trembling not with uncertainty, but with a growing sense of trepidation. She’s aware that Zoro, despite his verbal objection, isn’t really blocking her. As soon as the sound of the music and the surrounding voices begin to fade, she stops along a path seemingly free of intruders, loosening her grip.
“So?”
She doesn’t reply, letting her own breathing fill the silence as she scans the surrounding vegetation. Torches scattered along the path cast a warm, golden light, blending with the lanterns suspended among the trees. Shadows dancing among treetop houses and vines stretching toward the ground like natural screens stir a quiet thrill within her.
“Did you notice something odd and think it was best to tell me in private?”
She loves the night. She always has. And the landscape smirks at her in silent complicity.
“Come on, say som –”
Zoro doesn’t finish his sentence. He stops mid-word as he sees her draw the Clima Tact from the holster strapped to her thigh. Before the clouds she has conjured between them block her view, Nami catches his confused and annoyed expression. Her right hand shoots past the pale shielding curtain, snatching the swordsman’s tankard without meeting any real resistance. Although she assumes she has simply caught him off guard, her heartbeat can’t help but quicken, restless and delighted, poised between trepidation and anticipation.
“Think you can get it back?”
Zou’s forest is a riot of light and shadow blending into the night, steeped in the resinous scent of trees and the enchanting aroma of exotic fruits. The veils of cloud conjured by Nami swiftly transform it into a temple of fleeting illusions, elusive as the moon, like the fireworks that keep blazing across the sky. Zoro can’t see her, yet he can sense her. More than the faint sound of her receding footsteps, he feels her tangerine scent, fresh and sparkling, unmistakably hers. Yet he stays where he is, transfixed by the rustle of her laughter. A caressing, sly sound that bewilders him.
‘Think you can get it back?’
The words with which she had goaded him hang between them, laden with the implicit invitation he had read in her eyes, before she hid behind a wall of clouds. Nami hadn’t sensed anything fishy, nor had she chosen to step away from the crowd of celebrating pirates to warn him. She had planned to draw him into an unexpected, unpredictable game of cat and mouse. But she’s nothing like a tiny rodent. She’s cunning, elusive, mischievous. Hopelessly insolent. Like the Cat Burglar she is.
Following her scent would be enough to put an end to that game, yet he lets her carry on, allowing her to create more clouds amongst the foliage, to gain a considerable distance from where he stands. Because a part of him, however sceptical, hopes he isn’t mistaken, that he has correctly interpreted what his instinct – rather than her words or gestures – had whispered to him even before Nami led him into the secluded woods. Nami who stops amongst the plants, moves away from him and then returns like a wave, never quite drawing close, concealed by the shadows. By the clouds. By the night to which she entrusts herself.
Her illusions have obscured paths and torches, but Zoro follows the trail of citrus scent she unconsciously leaves behind her, advancing through the greenery protected by darkness with his hearing and sense of smell, listening to the rustling among the leaves, the buzzing in the grass, the creaking on the ground – sounds not made by him, yet which he hopes the navigator will figure being twigs snapped under his boots. He doesn’t start running until she does, in silent complicity with her need for time in that game. Time to turn the woods into a maze of fleeting lights, of brief flashes amidst ever-thickening veils of cloud.
The swordsman makes his way through those obstacles, driven by an unexpected rush of adrenaline, his heart racing, his breath coming short, his hands tingling. His hunter’s instinct has reawakened. He’s grateful to be able to let off steam, to welcome it back. As he climbs nimbly and effortlessly up a tree trunk to evade the trails of decoy clouds, he feels not amusement, but a visceral emotion, devoid of innocence. An impulse as pressing as thirst. Not for alcohol.
For a challenge.
Nami seems to have predicted his moves. Now that he has reached the gnarled top of a tree, Zoro can see the natural world around him more clearly. The warm sea of floating lanterns that have been illuminating Zou for days helps him make out the outlines of tree trunks and ancient plants, of houses deserted by their inhabitants, of vines below that open up onto cloud-free areas. But in the open spaces there isn’t a single trace of a red-haired woman. There are at least five. Part of him feels almost offended at the idea that she thinks she can fool him with every mirage of herself – some are so far from her true appearance that they elicit an inevitable inner chuckle in him. Another part of him, however, understands that she too knows it won’t work, that she has simply created them to add flair to her game.
Finding the real Nami shouldn’t be his primary goal, but his ultimate one. Zoro senses that this is what she wants. And he wants it too.
His hunt goes on in silence, broken only by the rustling of leaves stirred by the wind and the sounds of the party, now fading further into the distance. Every time he lunges at one of the navigator’s mirages, dispelling it by feigning to grab it, he feels the adrenaline surge. The anticipation leading up to the moment he catches her is nerve-wracking, yet it also makes it all the more satisfying.
He has pounced on three projections. There’s only one left to find, but that deceptive image slipped away into the shadows has no scent. Chasing it would mean risking straying too far from the real Nami, losing her trail. And with it the sense of direction he has never had. Something tells him that putting an early end to the hunt might be anything but disappointing. She doesn’t expect him to give up on finding her last mirage, convinced that Zoro would see it as a form of surrender. If he caught up with her now, he would take her by surprise. The mere thought of it tenses his muscles to such an extent that standing still becomes almost painful.
With his heart beating ever faster, his breath steady and his body brimming with alertness, the swordsman springs into pursuit, guided by the familiar scent of black tea and tangerine that wafts through the woods like an elusive call. The idea of disrupting Nami’s pattern is more irresistible than any other possible outcome. Leaves, earth, tree trunks, clouds, boulders, vines – he surmounts every obstacle in the woods that separates him from the navigator with renewed energy, unaware that he has been going in circles from the start. Until he realises that she has conjured up two more mirages to distract him.
He won’t indulge her anymore. He has chosen to stop, to lay an ambush. When he wants to, he can be particularly silent. And now he’s hunting. He’s a predator that even the ground beneath his feet can’t feel.
He senses her. She’s closer to him than she thinks. She has stopped too, aware that she’s not the only one to have done so. Zoro deliberately dives into one of the banks of clouds she has left behind to obscure his view, waiting for her to resume moving cautiously through the vegetation, focusing on finding a new hiding place. Only then does he reach another elevated spot, guided not by sight but by sound. From up there, he can make out patches of vegetation bathed in the golden light of the floating lanterns.
His chest tightens with surprise when he spots red hair sooner than expected.
Nami’s crouched behind a boulder sunk into the ground, beneath the arched leaves of a green plant at least large as umbrellas. The chosen spot, however, is strangely close to a cluster of torches planted in the ground. And devoid of clouds. The swordsman mouth twitches unconsciously. He wouldn’t even have needed to search for her from a high vantage point. She has chosen to hide by revealing herself, certain that he would focus on the shadows to hunt her down. If the idea of catching her off guard didn’t thrill him above all else, he’d let her believe that she had deceived him. But he has run out of patience.
Careful not to make the slightest sound, Zoro slips into the greenery with the clear aim of circling Nami. The time it takes him to touch the ground and reach her seems to last twice as long as usual. She doesn’t move, keeping her back pressed against the boulder she’s leaning against, her face turned towards the shadows, imagining she needs to watch out for them more than for the light behind her. But that’s precisely where he’s coming from, where the torches should make him clearly visible, his hand pressed against the point where his katanas’ scabbards meet to silence any involuntary clinking from friction. All he needs to do is leap to grab her and cut off any chance of escape. Holding his breath, an inner, victorious spark flaring within him, the swordsman leans forward, the shape of her shoulders almost beneath his fingers. Until instinct – sudden, unerring – screams at him to recoil.
The lightning meant for him strikes down exactly where he had just stepped, within inches of the leaf beneath which the navigator was hiding.
The smell of scorched earth fills his nostrils, whilst the person facing him, made visible by the swift fading of that lethal light, turns her face in his direction and winks at him. Her irritating, taunting smile stings his pride so deeply that he lunges forward again to prevent her from escaping.
Nami runs faster than he could have expected, leaving behind endless trails of clouds billowing from her Clima Tact. For a moment, he feels the urge to snap her staff in two. She no longer has his tankard with her, but he had known for some time that she had deliberately left it behind in the woods to misdirect him. He had never truly been interested in taking it back.
The taunt he was about to hurl at her to make her lose ground finds no voice, it dies out beneath the sound of a deliberately energetic laugh – the reflection of another jibe which, instead of annoying him, makes him quiver. Zoro had intentionally drunk little that evening. And yet now, as he runs without realising he isn’t really giving it his all to catch Nami, he feels overcome by an intoxication similar to that induced by booze. An intoxication that drives him to chase her, but at the same time to let her gain the edge.
He knows she has something else in mind. And he wants to find out what it is.
He gets his answer when he sees her look up and create a trail of clouds unlike any she had produced before. A solid, stepped path, similar to those he had walked along in Skypiea. The artificial staircase ends in front of the window of a wooden house built in a tree. Zoro stops at its foot, struck by a sudden twinge in his chest triggered by a tantalising feeling. Nami gives him no time to wonder whether he has truly hit close to home. She climbs the steps without looking back, erasing some as she passes, forcing him to take the first and leap quickly onto the rest. The thought that the hunt could end at any moment if he fails to guess which ones to reach only fuels his excitement.
A flash of orange among the branches, an echo of distant music, rich scent of wood – the lights of the floating lanterns suspended in the sky above Zou and the sounds of the party still in full swing are replaced by a silent twilight. Zoro managed to reach the treehouse by the skin of his teeth. The last cloud step had vanished just as he leapt through the window. The rustic walls that welcome him frame a modest open-plan space featuring a kitchenette and a sleeping area with two queen-size beds. It’s the prettiest dwelling he has seen on the island. And a glance at the furniture is enough to dispel any doubt as to who is temporarily occupying it. The sheets on the bed pressed against the corner wall look purple to him. Those on the other bed, bathed in moonlight due to their proximity to the window, are unmistakably orange. On the silver-lit night table lies a notebook with their crew’s Jolly Roger on the cover. It’s Nami’s logbook.
Nami whom Zoro can’t see, but knows is inside that house, together with him. He’d be sure of it even if he hadn’t seen her enter through the window. Because the sweet scent of the flowers on the table is mingled with an headier and more distinct one. A subtle yet pervasive perfume, almost overpowering the first, as if the very wood of the walls had absorbed it into itself.
Maybe the wood isn’t really imbued with it. Maybe it’s merely an impression created by his senses, which have unwittingly grown accustomed to recognising it, to chasing after it even when he would rather avoid it.
The sound of running water tells him that Nami must be in the bathroom. Zoro takes a few steps across the moonlit floor, peering around the corner. The door is closed. The lump in his throat prevents him from speaking. From thinking.
“Could you turn on a light?”
Her voice reaches him slightly muffled, dampened by the sound of running water. Her usual tone helps to calm his racing heart, but at the same time stifles the tantalising anticipation he’s been feeling ever since he started chasing her through the woods. He begins to grow thoroughly impatient, starting to think she’s led him up there just to play some strange prank on him. Someone, maybe Usopp or Franky, might be lurking amongst the branches that embrace the roof of the house, ready to enjoy the show. Yet he had seen them carry on the party outdoors, oblivious to the fact that Nami was dragging him away.
“Done.”
The swordsman looks around cautiously. Now, the moonlight and the fainter glow of the lanterns floating in the sky are joined by a scattered light that bathes most of the house. He has found three lamps, two on the bedside tables, and one on the table in the middle of the open-plan space. He has deliberately left one unlit, making it clear he has no intention of stay long – that he’s only there because he’s bored and curious to see what that witch has come up with.
Apart from the constant trickle of water, other faint sounds drift from the bathroom – brief rustles, sharp thuds, as if clothes were being taken off and bottles moved. The warmth he has felt in his chest since entering the house sinks lower, settling in the pit of his stomach with sharp persistence. Zoro tells himself it’s nothing but impatience, as he paces back and forth across the wooden floor with his arms crossed, a gesture intended to flaunt that emotion to the woman who’s making him wait on purpose.
The lock clicks open and the door swings inward. Having approached the window to look out at the landscape, the swordsman forces himself to wait a moment before turning around. Meanwhile her elusive scent of tangerine, mingled with the bold fragrance of black tea, envelops him more intensely, as if subtly testing him.
“Feel free to use the bathroom.”
Nami’s wearing the same clothes as before, low-heeled lace-up sandals, light shorts and an olive-green top. But she no longer has her Clima Tact. Her hair is down now, and as he watches her rummaging through the cupboard, her face looks fresher and clearer. “You know, after that run…”
The unfinished sentence was spoken casually, yet he detects a clear message beneath it. Something he doesn’t know how to handle.
Without saying another word, she keeps rummaging through the cupboard for what feels like an eternity, until she hears the bathroom door close.
A shiver runs down her spine. Zoro has gone along with her.
She wonders if he has really understood her purpose.
Her breath catches at the very thought, leaving her at the mercy of the warmth that has settled in her stomach with a gentle but persistent grip. Her hand clutching the glass bottle trembles. She didn’t get the whisky for herself, nor for the swordsman, but she places it on her bedside table anyway, where the light’s off. Outside, as the water begins to run in the bathroom, new bursts of fireworks drown out the endless music.
Unbelievable, they must be burning through the world’s entire stash of fireworks…
Nami tries to distract herself with that quiet irony, struggling not to be overwhelmed by her emotions. She should do something, instead of standing by the window watching the sky beyond the treetops. Read, maybe, or tidy the pantry. She can’t focus on anything, so she tries to listen to the distant sounds of the party, imagining to be still swept up in the euphoria she has revelled in for days, amidst those carefree, cheerful people. She does so to reawaken the self-confidence she lost the moment she stepped inside the house, but it only gets worse. Travelling in her mind to the party, whilst she’s alone and silence reigns around her, makes her fully realise how she’ll feel when it’s all over – when each of the people she cares about goes their separate ways.
Everything she had hoped to put on hold overwhelms her with the sudden force of a tidal wave. Nami remembers that she’s barely over twenty, and yet she has sailed around the world. That she has led her crew towards the One Piece. That she has taken part in the greatest war the world has ever seen, emerging victorious. That she has drawn the map no one in history had ever managed to chart. And she hates it. She doesn’t want to think, not now. She doesn’t want to feel anything but the present.
The bathroom door inches open.
Relief and disquiet wash over her all at once.
“You’ve switched on the wrong light. My bed’s here.” A faint electric shock runs through the hand with which she points to the mattress by the window. When she turns to look at the swordsman she feels another, more intense one, fuelled by her own provocation.
Several paces separate her from Zoro, yet his mere presence fills the space between them – it changes it, as if he’d charged it with air thick with clouds and yet warm as a convective current. Nami wonders if it’s really due to what she’s feeling.
The swordsman’s hair is damp, as if he’s just stepped out of the shower. She knows he must have washed it by dunking his head under the sink, a gesture he performs every day as part of his routine to deal with its unruliness – ‘Can’t be bothered to fix it, I just wet it to save time’. Seeing him like this now doesn’t elicit any resigned sigh at his innate roughness. It stirs something quite different. An intense, primal shiver that slowly slides down her spine. The yukata he’s wearing leaves only part of his chest exposed, yet it does nothing to make him look any less attractive – less feral. The pull of his powerful body is all-consuming as a burn.
Nami bites her lip. Their very clothing seems to highlight the difference between them, proving that they come from two distant worlds that have crossed paths only by chance. Yet the way he’s looking at her now erases that distance, whispering to her that it never existed. That if it ever did, it merely drew them towards one another.
“Robin told me she won’t be coming back here to sleep.”
Zoro says nothing, but she feels the meaning of those words strike him deeply. She sees it in the spark that the amber light of the lamps, mingling with the moon’s soft glow, ignites in his dark, intense iris. “I don’t want to think about what comes after tonight.” She hopes she isn’t wrong, that she isn’t deluding herself with mirages more elusive than those she had created for him in the woods. “I want…”
She doesn’t know how to tell him. She can’t untangle the knots created by her emotions. She feels unable to express herself, to find the right words.
“You want to treasure this moment.”
Nami parts her lips, breathing in slowly. Nodding. She has always known that Zoro is capable of reading her more deeply than she is herself. She realised it early on, when she saw him goading her to act at Arlong Park, pushing her to step into the open, to break free from her chains.
She had been afraid of him, but she had felt grateful.
Grateful and unarmed.
Unbreakable.
Just like now.
“I want to do it with you.”
Zoro had already heard her say it that evening, when she’d wanted to drift away from the crowd of celebrating pirates. Back then, the thought of another underlying meaning had brushed against him subtly, like the caress of a feather. He’d thought he’d simply misunderstood. Now those words hit him with force, triggering an unexpected pang of heat within him.
‘I want to do it with you.’
Not an invitation.
An order.
Suddenly, as he watches her hold his gaze in silence, her parted lips trembling ever so slightly – her eyes glistening with a vivid, raw desire – Zoro realises an undeniable truth.
Nami’s just like him.
She’s just like him in that moment. In her furrowed brow. In her firm, direct voice, yet unable to express herself as she truly wishes. In that desire that reveals to him everything he had never quite managed to understand wholly.
She’s full of a disarming fragility.
‘I want to do it with you.’
She can’t believe she’s actually said it to him. That she’s pushing herself where she’d always wished to go but never dared. She doesn’t want to hold back anymore. Under Zoro’s gaze, intense as burning embers, Nami slips one strap of her top down her shoulder. The echo of the touch she truly desires, now merely imagined, brushes her skin where the fabric slides along her arm, as she repeats the gesture with the other thin strip of cloth. She feels as if in a trance, her movements guided by an external force, yet at the same time utterly in control. She wants to let herself be carried by her own instinct, like a wave in the sea, following its course without reflection.
“Stop.”
The spell is broken just like that, before it has even begun, before her hands resting on her belly can slip the garment from her body. She feels as though she has been torn from the haze of a long dream. But in this reality, she’s not alone. Zoro’s standing before her. Zoro who told her to stop. Zoro who saw her baring herself whilst still clothed – and who rejected her. She can’t react, nor breathe. The heat within her burns differently, lingering dully in the pit of her stomach. Painful, insatiable.
She barely notices what’ happening around her, too lost in trying to keep her composure from crumbling.
It’s only a faint metallic clang that snaps her out of it.
Zoro’s katanas are leaning against the wall next to her bedside table. He’s staring at her. Nami pulls one shoulder strap of her top up, seeking support in her own hand as it grips the narrow strip of fabric, a shield in her arm raised in front of her breast. She must say something, she must do it as soon as possible, before her lack of reaction reveals how much that rejection stings, before the swordsman feels compelled to speak for her. But the sound of his approaching steps allows her only to part her lips.
Zoro closes the distance between them, encircling her hand – still resting on her shoulder – with his own. As if to ensure she won’t move it again to undress. “Don’t do it,” he repeats. Yet he places his other hand on her hip.
Nami goes still. His breath tickles her face.
Calloused fingers trace her exposed skin.
Her lips, her eyes. Her lips again, then her eyes once more. She sees him constantly shifting his gaze from one to the other, through endless moments of suspended silence. Until he runs his fingers from her hip to her belly, covered by her top.
“I want to be the one to take it off.”
Zoro pulls her in by the nape of her neck. He doesn’t give her time to process what he’s said. He kisses her slowly – just for a moment – before seeking more than just her lips with an ardent hunger, claiming her deeply with his tongue, in touches that overwhelm her like provocations. Thrusts that grow in duration and intensity, leaving her to languish for them, in them. Nami struggles and surrenders to that heat, dazed by the proximity of his imposing physique looming over her, her limbs lighter and tingling.
She feels his fingers pressing against her belly, as if to prolong the sensation of touching her, to fix it beneath his skin before undressing her.
‘I want to be the one to take it off.’
Without ceasing to kiss him, she leans into him, resting her hands on his chest, where she can meet his bare and firm skin, feel him alive – real – against her. Not an illusion. It’s actually happening. His sharp scent of iron and salt, his breath mingling with hers, his firm, demanding touch – each anchors her to reality, igniting her moment by moment.
Dizziness and longing. Longing and dizziness. Nami runs her palms from his chest to his shoulders, feeling his strength and hardness beneath the yukata. Overcome by a fierce need to feel him skin against skin, she slips both his sleeves off in one firm movement. Then she lowers them slowly, taking her time to touch him, to explore every irresistibly taut muscle. She doesn’t know where to linger. Every inch of those arms seems to have been sculpted to be caressed and felt beneath her hands.
His uneven footsteps guide her in the direction she hopes for and senses, without either of them ever ceasing to seek each other out. A spasm of fervour seizes her the moment she feels the edge of the mattress against her calf. Nami lets Zoro lay her down on the bed without resistance, an intense shiver running down her spine. His breath tickles her neck, her belly, her hips. It drifts lower, where desire throbs sharply. It wavers under the pressure of his chapped lips against her thigh, in a sudden kiss that sets her heart pounding, before continuing its descent. A rough, warm hand caresses her knee. The other grips her ankle resting against the footboard. She lifts her head to look at him, torn between anticipation and desire.
Zoro slips off one of her sandals, slow in his movements, rough in his manner. Impatient and at war with himself. He wants to undress Nami quickly, to take her right then and there, on that bed where she’s yielding to him. But he also wants to make those moments last as long as possible. Her expression conveys both desire and confusion. Let me handle this, he tells her without speaking, fumbling with the strap of the other sandal, too eager to care if he breaks it. Let me handle this, he repeats – he demands it, now that he knows he can have her, that he can do with her as he pleases.
And Nami waits. She gives him free rein. Motionless, tense and inviting.
Knowing she’s so lost to him only beclouds his mind. Zoro goes back to stroking her legs, his palms gliding over her smooth, trembling skin as he leans over her. The fingers of his left hand slide down her thigh, whilst those of his right touch the button of her shorts, undoing it only after a silent nod of consent. The zip meets the same fate, sliding down along with the shorts as he pulls them from her legs, exposing her dizzying curves. The swordsman is forced to summon all his self-control not to go any further straight away, to limit himself to lingering his gaze on the delicate knickers hugging her hips. Nami stares at him, lips parted, breath held, a warm glimmer in her feline eyes seeming to follow the rhythm of his touch, as he moves up to kiss her belly and lifts her top over her breasts.
He wants to throw himself onto her soft curves at once, yet he chooses to take a moment, leaving her protected by her clothes. He doesn’t do it for himself. He’s seen them covered only by a skimpy swimsuit many times, and her tantalising curves are etched firmly in his mind. He doesn’t want to rush things for her. He doesn’t want to overwhelm her with his roughness, certain that her sensitive skin would already be flushed from his bites. But the bra she’s wearing, as light as a black veil covering only her delicate areolas, is wickedly transparent – treacherous. His hands move before the impulse even reaches his brain, pulling her top up and over her head. And they tear open the cups of her bra in one sharp motion, yanking them down without caring if they rip.
She doesn’t protest. Zoro is met by her soft, full breasts, her smooth, pale skin bathed in moonlight. Her erect nipples, framed by a trail of goosebumps, are taut with desire for him. His fingers close around the left one, gently fondling it. The arousal causes an indecent twinge in his groin. Nami exhales in a broken breath. He watches her close her eyes and let her head fall onto the pillow, her loose hair scattered across the pillowcase, filled with the warm glows of an endless fire. The mere thought of being able to touch her, to feel and savour her beneath his tongue, makes his whole body tingle. His mouth closes over her exposed breast. His right hand keeps fondling the other, stroking her sensitive areola.
Smooth, soft, fragrant. Warm against his fingers, helpless beneath his mouth. Hypnotic. Just like the sigh she releases as he moves his tongue over her shivering areola. He’s determined to leave her no escape, to devour every inch of that delicate, wonderfully inviting skin.
A moan soars through the silence. The tip of his manhood inevitably grows wet at the mere sound of it. Zoro’s lost in her softness, her scent and her warmth, in the echo of her surrender that he longs to hear again – provoking her until she’s spent, until he himself is exhausted. He can’t resist any longer. He wants more. Something he expresses unconsciously by gripping her hip.
Nami gasps. She watches him lift his head from her breast, biting her lip, her cheeks flushed, her eyes filled with that same gleam he’d seen when he’d slipped off her shorts – a gleam of feverish desire – which clouds his mind more than hers. In them he reads the invitation to do as he pleases, a tangle of excitement that knots his stomach and causes a sharper twinge in his groin. Lifting himself off her to sit on the edge of the bed makes his heart race. Zoro reaches for her knickers with demanding hands and pulls them off without hesitation, letting them slide down towards her ankles, still resting on the footboard.
The silence inside the house, thick as steam in a sauna, allows him to hear the quiver of his own quivering breath. For a few moments, he thinks he catches a flicker of fear on Nami’s face. But then, as he looks at Nami while he kneels before her – the floor beneath him seemingly ablaze with his desire – he sees her part her legs. The faint blush colouring her cheeks barely catches his eye. Distracted by the sight she’s offering him, Zoro lifts his hands to her hips, wrapping them in an embrace that promises he’ll never let go, lingering where he’s finally been welcomed. Where he desired nothing but to be.
He kisses her lips as if they were her own mouth. And, meanwhile, he stares at her. Silently telling her that he won’t be satisfied until he sees her collapse onto him, exhausted, panting, burning with pleasure. He grants himself only those final moments of forced clarity to swear it to her, before beginning to move his tongue against her. At first slowly – eager to listen to her as well as to taste her, to fill his head with the sound of her pleasure – then with increasing determination. And she responds to those caresses by pressing her hips towards his face, growing gradually hotter and softer and wetter beneath his mouth.
Her fleeting moans, rising amidst broken gasps, captivate him to the point of addiction. His erection presses painfully against his boxers. His hand, instinctively longing to reach between his legs for relief, moves from her hip to her womanhood, caressing her gently as he pulls his mouth away to look at the vision in front of him. With his thumb, he begins to massage her most sensitive spot, feeling it taut and swollen beneath his skin. With his index finger, he lingers, unable to decide whether to prolong the pleasure for both of them by hearing her pant beneath his caresses, or to go further and watch her lose control. Nami arches beneath his finger, chasing the warm breath with which he’s teasing her, silently begging him to return to indulging her more intimately. And he, overcome by her intoxicating scent, by the taste lingering on his tongue that draw him back to her, resumes pleasuring her as she desires. Addicted. Relentless.
‘More, Zoro... oh, more...’
Languid, breathless, broken voice. It’s the most satisfying sound he has ever heard. Knowing that he’s the source of it inflames and flatters him. It leaves him dazed, urging him to prolong those moments. Nami’s torturing him without even touching him. He’d never have believed that the mere sound of her pleasure could leave him in such a state, his manhood throbbing and partially freed without even having been stripped of his clothes. Zoro’s tongue flicks over her slick lips, up and down, faster and faster, as he digs his fingers into her side to hold her tight, struggling against the restless, messy arching of her hips. The urge to have her in multiple ways at once overwhelms him violently, like an electric shock impossible to restrain. And yet, even then, he strives to take care of her fully.
Before pushing his index finger deep inside her, he delicately makes his way past her lips, to give her time to get used to him. Nami’s breath, which had faltered a moment earlier only to be released in a delighted sigh, breaks into a gasp the moment he meets an unexpected barrier.
Zoro stops instantly, lifting his head from her legs. He doesn’t move an inch, seized by a shiver that has nothing to do with arousal. Her eyes are restless, speaking to him of desire tinged with unease. He still has a finger inside her, so taken aback and confused that he can’t even move it. “I thought you…”
Her hushed whisper acts on him like a needle pricking a bubble, restoring his clarity. “…that I’d already done it before now?”
Yes, damn it.
Feeling him withdraw his finger from her body, Nami can’t suppress another small gasp. The moonlight illuminating his bare chest blends with the warm glow of the lamps to highlight every muscle, but at that moment his rugged beauty seems to parade before her eyes solely to make everything more embarrassing. “I know what you’re thinking,” her knees slowly draw upwards, a defensive move to shield her nakedness from his gaze, ‘“I should have expected you to have some nasty surprises in store for me.”’ There’s no bitterness in her voice, only an attempt to speak with casual wit, as she pulls her knees up to her chest to cover her breasts as well.
Zoro gets up from the floor and sits on the edge of the bed. “Believe it or not, that’s not the case.”
She casts him a fleeting, questioning glance. Beneath his relaxed features, his face betrays a heavy sense of unease. It seems to her that he’s trying hard to hide his disappointment and irritation. In the silence that spreads like mist, Nami feels overwhelmed by a wave of regret. The echo of the pleasure the swordsman had given her still lives within her. Yet, now, it tastes of a mocking punishment.
“What if I’d been less careful?” His words reach her in a low, bitter voice. “Didn’t you think of that?”
“No.” A prompt, sincere confession. I was too lost in your closeness, in your kisses, in your touches, to –
“I could have hurt you.”
His gaze, even more than those words that seemed to rasp against his throat, opens her eyes to an obvious, yet until then unimagined reality. Zoro’s neither disappointed nor irritated. Not with her, at least. A new kind of warmth awakens in her chest, different from arousal, yet just as enveloping. Her heart beats faster than usual, filled with a realisation that urges her to reach across the mattress and kiss him. “But you didn’t.”
Despite her words, he still seems torn. Of the passionate ease with which he had made her part her thighs to indulge her, only remnants remain, trampled by a bewildered stillness.
“What’s wrong?”
The look he gives her reveals an unforeseen rift. “I don’t want to mess this up for you.”
Nami had always known that behind Zoro’s rude and seemingly careless manner hid a deeply protective side. But she hadn’t realised it went that far. The very thought causes a tightening in her chest – a sudden ache that doesn’t truly harm her, and yet hurts with a disquiet that doesn’t come from within her. “You’re not going to ruin a damn thing. Just think that I want this, and that’s that.” Her heart skips a beat, but her voice is firm. A smirk familiar to both of them curves her lips. “Or would you rather back out?”
That’s her personal language, made up of direct provocations. With him, it works almost every time. It’s the swordsman himself who allows it. Because challenges, as she knows full well, are what he loves more than anything else. That’s why she had drawn him into that sudden hunt through the woods. To make him loosen up, to put him at ease – to ignite him – as well as to make him crave her.
Zoro parts his lips, releasing his breath in the uneven rhythm of a silent laugh. A knowing, carefree laugh that dispels his disquiet. His shoulders are less stiff, his hand resting on the mattress no longer clenched. And he’s no longer looking merely at her face, his interest piqued. Nami reaches for the lamp on the bedside table with a surge of secret elation. A shiver runs down her spine at the sight of Zoro’s three swords leaning against the wall, reminding her that her longing is returned. As she turns on the light, she hears him slipping off his boots. That simple gesture is enough to awaken a flash of heat between her legs. Seeing him brace himself on his hands and knees to reach her across the mattress makes her tremble, but she can’t stop it. Nor is she even aware of it.
Zoro rests his palms on either side of her body, his face close to hers, his bare chest brushing against her legs, still drawn up to cover her. For a moment, the shadow of an inner conflict returns to linger in his gaze. “Are you sure?”
The feeling that he himself is desperately hoping for a ‘yes’ sends a gentle tingle through her limbs. “I don’t recall you dragging me here against my will.” His breath tickles her cheek. “And besides,” she swallows, her heart pounding frantically, “you know I always like to get the best.”