Chapter 11 #2
Then he walked toward me, with unhurried, purposeful steps that ate up the distance between us before I could swallow or blink. I wanted to move, to scoot back and press myself against the wall, to demand he leave, but my body wouldn’t move. I sat frozen, every muscle locked with fear.
The man stopped within a hair’s breadth of where I sat and kneeled before me, close enough that I could smell him—sandalwood and something else, something that made my pulse race for reasons I was too afraid to examine—close enough that I couldn’t look away.
His eyes held mine.
There was no cruelty in them. No anger. Only calm certainty.
Hana and I had spent so many days together that I had almost forgotten what lessons would come later, lessons in sensual pleasure, in the true nature of the house. With the arrival of this man, I knew the time for those teachings had arrived.
The man’s hand moved to the tie of his kimono.
“Wait—” The word came out strangled.
He paused, one eyebrow raised. It wasn’t a question, merely an acknowledgment that I had spoken.
“I—I don’t—I’m not—I can’t—” I could not finish the sentence, any of them, could not put words to the terror, the revulsion, the horrible anticipation that warred in my chest.
Or the desire that flooded my body along with it.
The man pressed his index finger to my lips in a motion too intimate to be commanding.
“I am Sakurai,” he said. “It is time we learned what you are truly capable of, Kaneko-san. Give yourself to me, and this will be more pleasant that any lesson you could imagine . . . for us both.”
His eyes trailed down my bare chest as a fire danced in his dark eyes.
Sakurai’s index finger left my lips, slid down my chin to my neck, drifting lower until his palm pressed into my chest. His gaze stilled every thought I might have ever had.
He leaned forward and supple lips pressed into mine.
Paper walls spun, and time, once again, slipped away.
The kiss lingered until the taste of him seeped into every part of me.
I knew I should pull back or push away or do anything other than savor this stranger’s touch, but I couldn’t move.
Thunder roiled in my ears. A tempest raged in my chest. My body yearned for more, for the feel of his muscles, for the wetness of his tongue teasing my own.
He pulled back. His breath lingered on my lips, yet the distance now between us felt like a chasm, a gulf between worlds I longed to fill.
What was I doing? Why did I feel this way?
I couldn’t . . . I wouldn’t—
His lips grazed mine again, not quite a kiss, more an exploration. Then his tongue, a feather’s tease. My whole body shuddered.
I couldn’t do this, not to myself nor to Yoshi. How could I give myself to another? How could I let him have me, have what only one in my life had ever known?
My heart shattered, glass fallen from a shelf to scatter across a floor, never to be whole again. This was my fate now.
To learn.
To serve.
To give myself freely.
I had no choice, no free will. It didn’t matter that my body and mind warred in a battle of loyalty against lust. No one cared that I longed for another, one not chained to the delicate vases and petals of this house.
All that mattered was that I comply, that I become the product the mistress had purchased and shaped.
I could do this.
I had no choice.
Damn it, I wanted to. I wanted him. I wanted this stunning man whose lips lit fires in my chest and whose touch caused every part of me to tingle. The press of his hardness against my own confirmed everything he needed to know of my longing.
It told me of his as well.
This was madness. I couldn’t want this man, this courtesan who’d spoken only a handful of words. I couldn’t . . .
But deep within, in the depths of my waking need, I knew that to be a lie.
I did want him. I craved him. I needed him.
Not because of who he was, but how he felt, how a mere glance at his body caused my loins to ache. I wanted him pressed against me, holding me, kissing, filling the space in which I stood.
Why? Gods, why? Take these feelings from me. Take my life, damn you.
I tried to still my mind, my heart, yet everything in me craved more. The vigor of youth, the unbridled passion of men’s urges rose and swelled and demanded . . .
Compelled . . .
Begged . . .
I leaned forward, a movement so slight it might’ve been missed had this man been farther away, but he wasn’t.
He sat before me, so close I could taste his desire.
My mind knew he was here to train me, to follow the orders of our mistress, but something in his eyes, in the feel of his lips, in the sensual gentleness of his palm on my skin, told me he wanted me as badly as my own traitorous body craved him.
“Give yourself to me, Kaneko,” he whispered into my mouth.
His words were a plea and a command.
This stranger, this beautiful man—he wanted all of me.
I felt myself leaning into him as the press of his body and the heat of his skin consumed the last of my will.