“I won’t touch you,” I promised. “I’ll take my hands off right now, because…” I rested my forehead on her shoulder. “what started between us here six years ago started off honest. If nothing else, just let there always be that. Just listen.”
The last time we were here together, she heard everything. Everything I didn’t want people to know. And I wanted one person who knew me. I didn’t want that tainted between us simply because I was afraid of what she would think. I needed her to understand.
She breathed hard, but she was still, making no move to leave.
Loosening my grip, I kept my hands rested on her waist. “My father used to tell me stories about Japanese warriors,” I told her, keeping my voice low, “who, if they were defeated in battle, would commit what’s called the seppuku. Ritual suicide.” The images from the books I’d seen flashed in my head—men and women kneeling with a sword clutched in their hands. “Using a short blade, they’d impale themselves and slice open their stomachs. This would regain them their honor.”
She listened, and I leaned back, bringing her with me.
“They’d rather kill themselves than live the rest of their lives with the shame,” I explained. “And not just them, but it regained their family’s honor, too.”
She remained still, but I felt her relax just a little.
“Getting arrested changed everything for me,” I continued. “—my future, my family, my hope…. Even after I got out, I could still see it in my parents’ eyes. The sadness in my mother’s and the disappointment in my father’s.” My eyes stung, and I felt her relax against my chest as she listened.
“What could I do, short of sticking a fucking sword in my gut, that would make my father see me the same way again?”
I wrapped my arms around her waist, hearing the cathedral creak around us as the wind blew outside.
“I couldn’t be with a woman, Banks. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t drink or smile or hardly eat. I couldn’t do anything that would bring me pleasure, because I wasn’t worthy.”
I hesitated, not wanting to hurt her, but she needed honesty.
“We put Rika through such hell last fall,” I admitted. “We blamed her and targeted her, put her in danger and scared her. We terrorized her, Banks.”
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “She saw me the worst I’d ever behaved, and she still talked to me. Still listened. Still wrapped her arms around me and fuck it…” I choked out, tears welling. “We just, the three of us, needed that moment. Each for different reasons, but she made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. She made me feel wanted and strong. And it brought me a little peace for the first time in a long time.”
I could feel her body shaking in my arms, and her breathing quivered. She cried softly. “But you…” I buried my nose in her neck, smelling something heady and fragrant. “You make me feel driven. You make me hungry and on fire and wanting to slow down time instead of wanting to rush through it. It’s you I look for when I walk in the doors in the morning. Not her. You.”
She exhaled a heavy breath and twisted her head around, finding my mouth. We kissed, her lips melting into mine and our tongues finding each other, taunting and teasing, biting and taking. I groaned, my dick swelling inside my pants, growing painful.
“You can touch me now,” she whispered between kisses.
And I didn’t need to be asked twice.
I ran my hands around her waist, feeling the lace and skin and squeezing her, because my adrenaline was running so hot I was losing control. She was so sweet.
I cupped one of her breasts, holding her to me and savoring the feel of her.
“I like the top.” I kissed and nibbled her neck “I love it.”
“I’ll pay you for the clothes.”
I peeled off her jacket, letting it fall to the floor, before lifting her shirt over her head. “Yes, you will.”
My suggestive joke didn’t seem to piss her off, because she kissed me again, her tongue brushing against mine.
“For starters, you can behave yourself,” I told her, kneading both breasts in the gray lace again.
“I’m a street punk, Mori,” she taunted, leaving little kisses across my cheek that were driving me crazy. “I fight dirty.”
“Not anymore. It’s your turn now.”
“My turn for what?”
I pushed her up from my lap and twisted her around, bringing her in again to stand between my legs.
Looking up at her faint outline in the dark, I held her hips as her hands rested on my shoulders.