Chapter 25 Claimed #2
Her pussy clamped down on me in waves — tight, rhythmic, devastating. Her whole body shook above me, trembling and jerking, and a sound ripped from her throat that was half scream and half sob.
Her nails dug into my chest and I felt skin break.
Her juices gushed around my cock and ran warm down my shaft, soaking my balls and pooling on the stone.
I watched her face the entire time.
Watched her eyes squeeze shut and then fly open. Watched her mouth form my name without sound. Watched the tears gather at the corners of her eyes and spill down her cheeks—the kind of tears that come from pleasure so intense it overflows.
And I couldn't hold back anymore.
The pressure that had been building all night—since the first stroke of fire, since the first time she told me to be silent, since the first time she dragged her palm across me through the silk—it erupted.
I came.
I came so hard my vision went black at the edges. I arched off the slab and a roar tore from my chest as I pumped into her—thick, hot, endless.
Stream after stream.
Filling her up.
Flooding her pussy until I could feel my own cum leaking out around my cock because there was nowhere left for it to go.
"Take it, Tora." I groaned against her lips. "Take every fucking drop."
She collapsed onto my chest and I kept cumming.
My hips jerked against hers in short, involuntary thrusts as my body emptied everything it had into her. I could feel the mess between us—hot, wet, and overflowing. My cum mixed with hers and ran down my shaft, down my thighs, and pooled warm on the cold stone.
And then. . .
We lay there.
Gasping.
Wrecked.
Destroyed in the best possible way.
Her cheek pressed against my chest, right over my heartbeat.
My free hand rested on the small of her back with my fingers spread wide across her skin. My cock was still inside her—softening now, but neither of us moved to change that.
The blood on my shoulder had dried to a dark crust. The bite mark throbbed with a dull, steady ache that matched my pulse.
I smiled.
She marked me.
I would wear it the way she wore mine— proud, visible, and permanent until the skin healed.
What will Reo say? No. More important. . .what will Hiro say?
It didn’t matter.
All I knew was that. . .from now on. . .every time I touched that spot, every time fabric brushed against it, I'd feel her teeth and remember this night.
So perfect and all mine.
The tea house was quiet.
Candles burned low around us. The smell of sex, fire, sweat, and blood hung in the air like incense.
"Tora," I murmured into her hair.
She stirred. "Hmm?"
"I meant every word."
She lifted her head and looked at me. Her eyes were drowsy, satisfied, and still wet at the edges. My blood was still faint on her chin—a shadow of the smear that had been there before the kissing wore it away.
"About the babies."
A lazy smile crossed her face. "I’ve got. . .precautions in the way."
“What precautions?”
“I’m on birth control.”
I frowned. “Get off it.”
“We haven’t even known each other for longer than a month.”
“I won’t repeat myself.”
“I’m not thinking about kids until I have a ring on my finger.”
“What’s your ring size?”
She blinked and then swallowed. “There’s the war.”
“What does war have to do with rings and babies?”
“The Fox sounds like a slick, sick bastard. You’ve got the lead now.
Use it. Once you win, we have forever to talk about rings and kids.
” She lifted her finger and then touched the bite mark on my shoulder—gentle, careful, following the impression her teeth had left in my skin. "I can’t believe I bit you."
"You did."
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes." I smiled. "Do it again."
She laughed.
I studied her. “Tora.”
“Yes.”
"I'm serious about the birth control."
She shifted to drawing a circle on my chest. "I know you are."
"Then get off it."
"Kenji," she said my name the way a woman says a man's name when she loves him but won't be moved. "I'm not bringing a child into the middle of a war and carrying your baby while the Fox is still breathing."
“Tora—”
“If he killed a Black woman that Hiro just took on one date, what the hell do you think he will do to a pregnant-me?”
I clenched my jaw.
She was right and I hated it.
"When it's safe," she whispered and pressed her lips to my chest. "When the war is done and the empire is yours and there's no one left who can touch us. Then. . .we talk about babies."
"And the ring?"
"And the ring."
I was not a man used to a moment like this. Typically, I ordered and it was followed, immediately. But I was learning more and more that in these delicate moments. . .my Tiger was the one in charge.
She has more power over me than she will ever understand.
I exhaled through my nose and let my hand slide up her spine. My fingers traced the ridges of her vertebrae. "Fine."
“Thank you.” She kissed my chest again. "Now. . .I have to get up—"
“Not yet. I want you laying across me like this.”
“There’s aftercare.”
“Not yet, Tora.” I closed my eyes. “Just lay against my chest and hold me. That’s enough aftercare for now.”
And she did as I asked, soothing me down to my soul.
And behind my eyelids, I saw her.
Standing in the garden—my mother's garden, the one from the fever dream, the one with the koi pond and the cherry blossoms.
My Tiger wore white, and her hand rested on her full belly. And the sun hit her brown skin and turned it gold. She was barefoot in the grass and she was smiling at me.
The little girl with her eyes sat by the pond, dragging her fingers through the water while the koi circled her hand.
The boy with my jaw and eyes chased a dragonfly across the lawn, laughing so loud the cherry blossoms shook.
Yes. Soon.
I watched my Tiger in the garden for as long as the image held. Memorized the curve of her belly. The way her fingers spread across it—protective, proud, already a mother in the way she stood.
She'd get off the birth control.
Maybe not tonight.
Maybe not this month.
But one day, I would walk into a room and she would look at me with those eyes—the same ones that had watched me burn tonight—and she would tell me that she was pregnant.
And I would drop to my knees.
Soon.
I tightened my arm around her and pressed my lips to the top of her head. "Thank you, Tora."
She was already half asleep on my chest.
And I held her in the ruins of everything I used to be and understood finally, that surrender was never the end of power.
It was the beginning of something stronger.
Then, darkness took me.