WARNING: The following fan fiction contains adult sexual situations. If you do not care to read such content, then do not read this fic. However, I'm a firm believer in the belief that if you're going to have sex it better be within a plot. So, I would like to HOPE this has a plot. You may want to read this with a fan or something cool to drink nearby. ^_~

Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin or the characters listed herein. They are the property of Sony and Watsuki-sensei. No profit is made from this work. So please don't sue me I'm an anime obsessed college student. In other words, I'm perpetually broke.

Comments and constructive criticism are welcome.

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A Heartfelt Prayer
By K. C. Hulsman
kaorusensei@hotmail.com
May 9, 2000

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Aoshi padded softly through the quieted and twilight bathed hallways of the Aoiya, faint points of flickering light illuminating the way. He slowly treaded his way up the stairs, running his fingers languidly up the wooden banister a soft smirk resting momentarily on his lips.

He slowly slid the door open to their room and frowned, seeing the futon still folded neatly in the corner, and no trace of his beloved wife. Not even the barest wisp of her.

We've only been away a couple of weeks, and… it's almost as if she's never been here at all.

The sight of a grouping of her kunai, which laid out on top of one of the cabinets, soothed his nerves. There was something… unsettling about the lack of her in this room.

He turned around softly sliding the door shut noiselessly behind him, and retraced his steps back down the stairs.

He heard the clatter of pots and pans, and followed the source of the sound like a beacon.

“Okina, have you seen Misao-chan?”

“She had mentioned something about offering up some prayers. I think she went to the temple.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

Aoshi turned away, heading towards the door where he slid his shoes on and headed off towards the temple frowning.

He made his way through the streets of Kyoto, watching his breath steam out in small little white puffs of fog in the chill evening air. The first snow of the year should fall soon.

He entered the temple grounds, walking beneath the grand old arches, and looked up the stairs frowning at the site of the darkened temple. Surely, if she was here there would be some light?

He paused unsure if he should turn around, or check. Better to err on the side of caution.

He padded softly up the worn smooth stone steps, grateful the moon was bright to illuminate his path. He knew all too well how treacherous these steps could be at night or in bad weather.

He entered the temple proper on silent feet, frowning when he saw the vacancy of the room. With a sigh, he walked out of the room, and decided that before he should leave he should check the temple gardens.

His feet shifted softly making muffled crunching noises as he walked on the white gravel path. His breath caught as he saw her there, sitting on the bench in the chill autumn air, her figure bathed in moonlight, her silhouette wreathed in moonlight.

“Misao, “ he called to her as he treaded closer.

She raised her head, but did not turn around to greet him, did not give voice to any greeting.

Aoshi frowned as he approached, kneeling behind her in the dead crispy grass, arms encircling her waist and pulling her back against him.

“Misao, it's cold. You'll get sick if you stay out like this.”

Still she was silent, and Aoshi frowned knowing how uncharacteristic it was for her to be silent and still.

“Misao,” he whispered in her ear, moving a hand up to caress her cheek gently, eyes widening when he felt the moistness of tears on her cheeks.

“Misao what is wrong?”

She shook her head, biting down on her lower lip.

“Are you unwell?” murmured Aoshi as he raised a hand to feel her forehead for a fever, but found it a bit chilled from the night air, but otherwise fine.

“No,” she choked out amidst sobs that shook her shoulders with the vehemence of her pain.

Aoshi closed his eyes wrapping her up in his arms tightly and brought her against him, holding her shaking small form. His head hovered and mantled protectively over her dark tresses.

“Misao, please,” his voice nearly cracking on the word “tell me what is troubling you so, what hurts you so.”

Long experience from their five years of marriage keyed Aoshi to her reactions. She did not shake her head no, or stubbornly refuse, she merely shook in his arms and he knew that if he could but be patient that she would answer his question.

He held her for a long time, gently rubbing her arms to ward off the chill effect of the evening air, and then suddenly he heard it: her soft voice.

“I came here to pray.” She whispered her words so soft they were no louder than the soft murmurings of the snow falling.

“But why?”

The silence stretched for a few more minutes and she looked far away into the night sky staring at some spot only she saw.

“I've failed you.”

Aoshi's brows drew up in not only startlement but in perplexment as well.

“Misao, you've never failed me, why would you think that you had?”

“Five years,” she sobbed. “We've been married over five years and never once in all that time have I conceived,” she choked out bitterly.

Aoshi tightened his hold on her to stunned to speak, and closed his eyes willing the unbidden tears to disappear.

It was the visit with Kaoru and Kenshin, and seeing their kids that made her feel like this.

“Misao,” he murmured into her ear but in a tone of voice that bode for no argument, which demanded to be listened to in all sincerity. “You have not failed me. You could never fail me. You were always there, always believed in me when I could not believe in myself. Do not blame yourself. It may very well be me. It takes two to make a child afterall. My happiness with you is undeserved, perhaps I was not meant to have children. Or perhaps… the answer lies in our own bodies. I'm no doctor but I know there are certain conditions that must be met.”

“Aoshi-sama,” she mourned leaning back against the strength and solidity of his frame.

Sama… she only calls me that in moments of extreme vulnerability anymore.

He gently reached up and caressed her face wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“Or maybe we just need to pray for it together.”

“Do you really think so?”

The sobbing form of Misao in his arms stilled and glanced up at him like a small child looking for confirmation that all will be well. He smiled with a pang of pain clutching at his heart.

“It is possible. Surely, you of all people most know the power of prayer. How long did you pray for me?”

Misao smiled tremulously “Far too long, you were far too stubborn.”

Aoshi chuckled softly, “one of my many faults. But you were just as stubborn. So if we decide to both be stubborn together… imagine what we could do.”

Misao smiled amusement dancing in her words. “Indeed, my husband.”

Aoshi smiled tenderly, relieved to hear the sad notes of her voice restored to the delicate aria of mirth.

He gently swept her braid away from her neck, laying a soft tender kiss at the nape.

He was rewarded with a soft little murmur of pleasure for his efforts. He smiled, and the smile only deepened as he began absently nuzzling her neck.

Misao sighed contentedly, one of her hands gently caressing his hand that rested leisurely on top of her stomach. “Anata, how did you know I was here?”

Aoshi's lip twitched in amusement hovering between a smile and a smirk. “I asked Okina, head of all spies.”

“No you asked Okina, busy-body extraordinaire.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes one is a job, but he gets too much pleasure from it, so it eliminates it being a job for him.

“Ah.” His lips trailed war moist kisses across her neck, his tongue laved at the pulse point behind her ear, before he gently suckled her earlobe into his mouth.

“Ao-shi,” her breath had caught mid-word and the remainder of the word had trailed off into a hushed murmured.

“Hmm?” he purred in her ear, one hand gently trailing sensuous caresses from her neck, down her spine, to stroke possessively at her back.

She turned her face towards him, neck angling upwards until she was able to glance at his face and into his eyes. She smiled happily, “I love you.”

Aoshi leaned forward nuzzling her nose briefly with his nose before kissing it. His face then pulled away to reveal a broadly smirking profile.

“I know,” he replied his voice oozing with smug satisfaction as his left hand began to slowly ease her obi free, his other hand moving to casually caress up the contours of Misao's body before brushing gently against her cheeks.

“AOSHI!” Her voice vibrated with incredulity, outrage, and hotly flushed embarrassment.

“Hmm…” he purred evilly as the knot of the obi slide undone and the fabric slide over the slink of her kimono into his undressing hand. “Yes, my love?”

“We're… temple… can't… what if” she stuttered over her own words.

Aoshi chuckled softly. “No one comes here at night, and if any one does… I'll kill them. No one can see your true beauty but me.” He growled huskily in her ear, letting his tongue trail from her ear to her cheek and jaw, as his hand titled her face towards his for a kiss.

Her outrage died amidst the soaring, searing passion of that kiss. It became irrevocably lost among her feelings of desire and completeness. She suckled softly at his bottom lip, her tongue venturing out beyond the safety o her own mouth to tease and lap at his mouth in a kitten-like manner.

He moaned softly as the fabric from her obi slid in a serpentine tumble to the bench beside her. His hands trailed teasingly around the curves of her breasts, and in the moment she let down her defenses, when she moaned with reaction, he deepened their kiss until his tongue was courting playfully with hers.

His hands trailed slowly along the folds of her kimono, his fingers just sliding underneath the silken fabric of her azure under kimono to stroke her soft skin.

He felt her arch against him in her pleasure, eagerly deepening their kiss made breathless minutes ago. Her moans tickled and vibrated his tongue. He smiled smugly against her lips as his hands slowly slid both layers of the kimono off her shoulders, the kimono catching at her elbows and leaving her exposed to the chill night air.

She gasped breaking the kiss, shivering slightly with the suddenness of the frosty air against her skin, and then gasped again as she felt the searing warmth of his hands caressing her, cupping her breasts with his thumbs idly stroking over the achingly taut peaks of her nipples.

He smiled; his eyes were half-slitted like a cat's in pleasure at the sounds he elicited from her. Her body arched longingly into his caresses, her neck arching back so her head rested upon his shoulder. Her breaths steamed in little clouds of pleasured happiness before his eyes, amidst her fevered-laden cries.

He slowly moved around her, shifting her weight carefully moving one hand down to stroke her inner thighs languidly from knee upwards. He paused just short of her aching hunger, before his hand switched to the other thigh letting his fingers meander like a running stream against her fleshy landscape. She moaned in protest, but he covered that sound of protest the moment he took one of her rosy peaks into his mouth.

“Aoshi…” she murmured with eyes closed tight with pleasure, the name rolling off her tongue like the most intimate prayer whispered to god in the quiet stillness of a dark uninterrupted night.

He slowly moved around her, until he was kneeling before her, drinking in her silvered body from the soft moon glow.

“Beautiful,” he breathed softly in abject worship and adoration.

Misao's hazed eyes opened slightly and she smiled tenderly at him, a hand reached out to caress his cheek.

“That's what I think when I look on you.”

Aoshi smiled softly, turning his face to nuzzle the back of her hand, then kiss her palm as he gently moved away from it to nuzzle his lips among the softness of her downy breasts as his hands gently caressed her in synchronization from knee, up thigh, over hip, up her side, and around the curve o her breasts, to trace up to her shoulders and across her collarbone before retracing the gently undulating path of his passion-powered fingers.

Her arms wrapped around his head as her fingers burrowed in his dark tresses with eager rapt hunger.

His tongue laved at the spot in the valley of her breasts, as he murmured a heartfelt hymn of praise, “precious.” He let his tongue trail up the curve of her right breast, and before his tongue swirled around the nipple to suck the peak into his warm mouth he sang the next verse of his hymn: “beloved.”

Tears came unbidden to Misao's eyes at the overwhelming tenderness that wrenched her heart, not with pain, but with a joy so deep she knew it was a healing, an answer for a prayer uttered so long ago. She thanked Kami-sama reverently for this Aoshi she so rarely saw a glimpse of.

He slowly grazed his way across her lilied breasts and sang a new hymn: “blessed.” He gently nibbled on her taut peak letting his tongue graze searingly against it in his mouth as one hand rubbed his palm against her flaming need.

She gasped body quivering with the starvation of her hunger, whimpering to his ears her overwhelming need.

He lazily allowed the other hand to roam across her thighs and the tight ridges of her stomach, as his head slowly nuzzled down from her breast. His tongue dipped teasingly into her navel, and he smirked at the squeaky mirth filled moan she emitted.

He progressed lower still until the soft coils of his dissipating foggy breath curled around and teased her moistness she gasped and moaned in supplication, “please Aoshi.”

It was such a passionate plea, such a fervor-filled prayer, that he knew he could not resist it. He could resist her nothing, and besides it gave him infinite pleasure to be able to grant her requests, to answer her prayers.

He sang one last word of murmured worship: “my wife.” Then he dove into the honeyed nectar of her depths with sweet nurturing care.

Misao's whole body erupted into flaming heights of passion that rivaled that of any bonfire. Her body arched eagerly into her lover's deft touch, and clever mouth. Her hands clutched, kneading in his hair, as she mewled and purred her pleasure aloud in softly uttered pants.

He drank her in, like a man who had been lost in a desert amongst dunes of sands and drowning in his desire to quench his unending, bottomless thirst. He had found his oasis, and to keep it from disappearing like some mirage, his hands traversed the landscape before him. His fingers undulated over the soft shifting dunes of her breasts as they also ran stoking fingers over her writhing muscled thighs.

He nuzzled against her tender depths, letting his tongue trail hot wet flames of pleasure until it quickened in her body and released like a thundercloud breaking and rolling across the horizon.

She arched gasping his name, shuddering with the sheer ecstasy of it all, leaning heavily into his hands, which rested, supportingly around her waist and against the small of her back.

He gently eased his head up feeling her fingers entwined in his hair relax, and lipped his lips, smirking at the dew covered panting site before him. He trailed a moist line of kisses up her torso, against the nook of her neck, before his lips sought the surrender of her mouth to his.

When he felt her arms wearily wrap around his back, holding him possessively in her exhaustion, he gently stood up, cradling her in her arms.

Her kimono trailed from her elbows into a cascade of rippling, moon-bathed silk as he carried her inside, and gently lowered her to the wooden planked floors.

She smiled up at him, her eyes still glazed with glowing desire, and her hands stroked softly at his back, and then she started to laugh.

Aoshi arched an eloquently phrased eyebrow at her.

“I know why you came in, it was fine for me to be out there in the cold… but you didn't want to expose… yourself to the cold.”

Aoshi looked stricken, then sheepish. “You know me too well.”

“Beast.”

“Let me prove it to you,” he growled huskily as his eyes gleamed nearly feral in the pale moonlight filtered through the rice paper panes. His hands grabbed her wrists, raised them above her head, and held her pinioned.

Misao moaned eyes closing in pleasure. Her arms were lax against his loving hands, her body arched in sheer hunger towards him, straining like a blooming bud reaching towards the scorching sun.

He shifted so that one hand held her pinioned in place, and hastily removed his clothing, his hand trailing with velvety teasing oblique patterns along her skin in most unexpected snatches. Once the last enshrouding article of clothing had made soft contact with the floor, his eyes raked her body, panting gently there beneath him. He closed his eyes and swallowed down the urge to ravage her savagely.

The soft wispy puffs of her breath, her labored breathing, the graceful curve of her neck, the swellings of her breasts, and gently roaming curve of her hips, all beckoned to him, all invited him to partake and be filled.

His tongue caressed her cheek, as his free hand stroked from mid thigh up to the swell of her breasts. He smirked with divine satisfaction at the shudders of her body, and the barely parted lips that looked parched and burned by yearning.

He licked fleetingly across those lustrous lips, and nuzzled down her jaw and chin to her neck. His lips traversed slowly down her throat until the nuzzled at the tenderness found at the hollow of her throat.

His sweltering lips passed briefly over each nipple as he slowly moved over her, letting his hand trail down her side to nestle in the sweet nook at the base of her back.

He adorned her brow with a gentle kiss, and smiled gazing into her eyes.

“Misao-mine. I love you.”

She arched her head up, and kissed his nose, her eyes dancing with the mysterious depths of a woman who exists in an environment of love.

He sought sanctuary in her depths for his own hunger, moaning a supplication to god. His eyes closed in his pleasure; his head sought refuge among the tresses of her hair. He inhaled her scent deeply relishing her musk of faded sakura blossoms in the spring.

He moved within her, mind focusing on the joining, of the pleasure, of the aching heartfelt wish behind it all. The hand buried beneath her arching back, lifted her up against him with every devouring thrust.

They moved together as one, straining towards that indescribable pleasure, that unfathomable release. Their hearts were of one accord: filled with love for one another. And their minds strained towards the same goal, the same wish.

And as one they tumbled over the brink, shockwaves of their passion rippling through them both, mouths mouthing in harmonized entreaty towards some unseen power.

“Kami-sama, grant us our prayer.” Aoshi murmured spent, exhausted, and with the impact of all his emotions behind the spoken words.

Misao half sobbed beneath him, adding her jeweled tears as a sacrificial offering to their prayer.

Aoshi kissed her tears away, and brushed his soothing lips across her brow as he gently eased himself from her and released her pinioned wrists. He sank heavily beside her, and drew her up into his arms, feeling her arms wrapping around him in turn.

He closed his eyes listening to the reassuring sounds of her soft breathing as she finally caught her breath. Feeling the quiet of the night enfold upon them, blanket them and not oppress them.

Several long, peaceful moments passed, and neither one of them moved nor spoke. The temple was overflowing with an orchestrated chorus of exhausted silence.

The applause came when Aoshi moved and gently kissed her brow again.

“We should head back, before we do turn ill from this night chill, and before the others send out a search team. I wouldn't want to kill them afterall.”

Misao looked up at him, eyes shining with the basking twilight of their passioned love. “Hmm… yes. And once there, I can make you my prisoner.”

Misao chuckled evilly thinking of the last time she had entrapped him with scraps of varied textured cloth and her kunai.

Aoshi swallowed nervously, but smiled, eyes glowing with an unending desire.

“Don't get too carried away. Last time you were so… enthusiastic in your play that the others teased us abut it for weeks.”

Misao turned crimson, her eyes lowering demurely. “You bring out the beast in me. Especially when you squirm so.”

Aoshi sighed and muffled her hair, his hands sliding the kimono hanging on around her elbows back around her shoulders.

“Come beloved. The sooner we are home, the sooner we can play.”

Misao's eyes glittered ominously as she rose gracefully to her feet, fetched her obi, redressed, and accompanied her smirking husband home.

End.

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Glossary:

Anata: a form of you, meaning something akin to darling.
Kami-sama: God/Goddess/Deity.
sama: honorific added to the name of one of rank.
chan: honorific added to the name of one who is a child or endeared to you.

Author's Notes: As some of you on the various Kenshin Fic Mailing Lists may know, I challenged Tin. If she could provide me with the next part of her fic “Of Love and Honor” by a certain date, I would write an Aoshi & Misao lemon. This is the fulfillment of my side of the bargain. Tin is not releasing the OLH part she has written until she has finished the entire fic. She came to this decision because the part she gave me, 13b, ends on such a horrid cliffhanger. The next chapter is in fact the last chapter. So she plans on releasing the last of OLH all together. So sadly the rest of you will have to wait. No amount of whining will change Tin's mind, so please do not bother her for it.

Look at it this way, you at least know she's that much closer to finishing, and you got an Aoshi and Misao lemon out of the bargain too.

Wow…. Sometimes I really scare myself at times. I hope this was good… it's my first ever lemon with a heterosexual couple. Dang it all, Yumi/Tae you corrupted me. I hope you feel proud. ^_^ I wish I could say the phrase Misao-mine is mine. But it's not. Some other fic writer used it, so here I am ripping her off. I don't remember whom though. -_-