She felt hot and prickly, and her nipples were so hard that they rubbed against the lace of her bra.
The crowd had thinned and drifted around her, moving on to the next enthralling scene. But Kimika stood for a long time, staring at the now empty station, reliving the things she’d witnessed in her head until she had to squeeze her thighs together against the ache that had been set alight there. Wondering if she would ever have the courage to put herself out there so she could experience such things for herself.
Curiosity got the better of her, and after taking a surreptitious look around and satisfying herself that no one was taking the slightest bit of notice of her, she crept forward and reached up to read exactly what was written on the gift tag hung from the mistletoe.
Menage / Harem.
Just the words alone stole Kimika’s breath, they were so very evocative to her. The root of her deepest, untold fantasies.
Not that she wanted to be a part of a harem, but she wouldn’t mind having one of her own.
The wicked thought brought a small grin to her face, and it was with a regretful sigh that she dropped the tag and took a step backwards… right into something warm, and solid, and unwavering.
Reflex had her jumping forward. She would have whirled around to see who was there, except she collided with a strong, wide chest, her hands splaying across its expanse, her brain subconsciously aware of the crisp white shirt beneath her fingers and the scent of sandalwood that swirled around them.
She looked up… and up, her neck craned back until she finally stared into the face of the person who had set goosebumps to prickle along her arms where his strong hands steadied her.
A strong, bearded jaw, and an expression completely inscrutable because of the dark glasses he wore, despite the dimness of the dungeon, greeted her, and Kimi felt her pulse leap in response.
“I - I’m s-sorry,” she stuttered, a different kind of heat blooming in her cheeks. “I didn’t see you there.”
Was it her imagination or did the bodies behind her close in on her again. She hadn’t looked to see who was there yet, and right now she couldn’t peel her eyes away from the man who towered in front of her.
Colt James.
“Kimika.” He inclined his head politely. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Kimi didn’t know exactly what she had expected, but the stark disappointment at his innocuous words had her swallowing painfully.
What had she expected?
That this handsome, mysterious man with his aura of masculine intensity had sought her out deliberately?
That was so far out of the realms of possibility that she didn’t even bother daydreaming about it.
Except she did. Even though she knew this man was so far out of her league that he was in another dimension.
In the silent darkness of the night, she had imagined this mans’ hands on her body. Or what his wide shoulders and rock-hard chest might look like, naked, with just her seeking fingers to adorn it.
Like a masked thief in the obscurity of illusion, where there were no eyes to see her make a fool of herself, she had stolen make believe moments with this man and woven them together into the most lustful of fantasies that often also involved his two closest friends, Craig Colton and Shay Lando. Each one of those men had the same effect on her usually dormant libido. Sparking it to life with just a thought in the privacy of her mind where no one would ever mock her for her foolish dreams of men so far above her station that simply thinking about them seemed shockingly inappropriate.
Kimika dipped her head in a respectful bow and kept her eyes averted. She thought she heard a breath being sharply sucked in but couldn’t tell where it came from or even if it was aimed at her, but she quaked inside at the thought that she might have offended someone.
“No apologies are necessary, Sir,” she replied quickly. “It was my fault entirely. I should have watched where I was going.”
With her head still bent, she took a step backwards, then her eyes widened as she encountered a solid wall of resistance. Her head popped back up again, but before she could turn, hands on her shoulder, her arm, her waist - too many to belong to a single person - steadied and stopped her.
A low, husky voice murmured in her ear, the warm breath with its familiar timbre skittering over the sensitive skin at her nape and making the fine hairs there stand up on end as a frisson of electricity shimmered across her nerve ends. “Steady there, Kimika.”
Shay Lando.
She would recognize his dulcet tones anywhere.
A single finger drew a line down her arm, and somehow, to her overeager brain, it felt like the most sensuous touch she’d ever encountered.
A shower of goosebumps followed in its wake, and this time the shiver Kimi gave was palpable; missed by no one.
“Might you be standing beneath this particular sprig of mistletoe for a reason, Miss Murakami?”