Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66993 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
What a crazy story. . .
I’d devoured that chapter last night and hadn’t meant to fall asleep after reading it but I had.
And when I did, I dreamt of a dragon with wings like thunderclouds and eyes filled with ruin. He chased me through a burning and crumbling palace.
Right before he was about to catch me, I woke up.
Dragons. . .
I took another sip of champagne and pressed my palm against the door, grounding myself. The city outside still shimmered but it had faded into background noise.
My real focus was back on that book—in that scene I couldn’t shake.
Korin.
The god-dragon who’d burned a city for the sheer thrill of it.
Until he saw her.
That woman—a vision of calm amid carnage. Standing barefoot in the square while everything else crumbled around her. Her skin was deep brown like mine. Her hair long and wild. She hadn’t flinched when the sky cracked open and death poured out of it. She didn’t scream when his fire roared through the air.
She didn’t run.
She’d simply raised her hands and stopped him cold.
That image haunted me.
Because here I was, gliding through Tokyo in the most expensive car I’d ever seen, headed toward a man who commanded a fire of his own.
I wasn’t standing in a city square, facing down a beast but it sure as hell felt like I was walking into the dragon’s lair.
Was that what the woman in the book had felt, too?
Was she swooning inside, the way I was now?
Because if I was being honest, my knees had already turned to jelly just imagining Kenji’s voice again. The way he’d looked at me back at his office. The raw edge of danger he wore as a second skin.
Was that what the woman had seen in Korin? Not just a monster but a god? Something massive and mythic that maybe—just maybe—she wanted to touch even as she fought it?
I couldn’t tell.
I only knew that I wished I could be her.
Unshaken.
Grounded.
Magic in my bones.
Cold steel in my gaze.
Right now, I did not feel like her.
Not at all.
Right now, I just felt soft and breathless, drowning in leather seats and luxury, aching over a man I barely knew but my body already burned for.
A man I was bringing gifts to.
A man I was letting court me in a way no one ever had.
I wondered about the heroine again from that book.
Could I be like her?
I imagined myself raising my hands in front of Kenji but this wouldn’t be to defend myself. This would be to not give in.
Because it was one thing to stand before a dragon and be afraid.
It was another to suddenly. . .and desperately want him. To want all that danger, all that fire—and still refuse to kneel.
Maybe that was what Kenji wanted me to understand by sending this car.
But why the hell did he send that book?
It wasn’t just a story.
Perhaps, it was a mirror of this situation.
He was the dragon after all.
Was he watching me to see if I would stand my ground. . .or surrender?
I pressed my fingers to my lips, still tingling from the champagne.
The video screen flickered again, showing a new set of dancers, their bodies painted in red light.
I barely noticed.
This date is going to be intense.
I took another sip of the champagne.
I may have fucked up by saying yes. . .
I wasn’t used to wanting this deeply.
Wanting someone who scared me.
Someone I respected.
Someone I could lose myself to.
That’s what made this dangerous.
That’s what made this real.
My mother had always warned me about men with too much power but she'd never told me what to do when that power called to something equally dangerous within myself.
Shit. I’ll have to stay on my toes and not let the damn dragon devour me.
As the car turned onto a private road flanked by cherry trees, their petals illuminated by hidden lights, I understood that whatever happened tonight wouldn't just change my relationship with Kenji—it would redefine who I believed myself to be.
Chapter twelve
To Be Kept
Nyomi
We continued.
Lights blurred.
Streets thinned.
The air grew still.
Tokyo’s chaotic pulse softened into a whisper as we climbed higher into the hills. Somewhere behind us, the neon fever of Shinjuku and Shibuya kept dancing.
But up here?
Time held its breath.
Only the hush of tires on ancient stone roads remained.
We’re almost there.
My champagne flute was nearly empty.
I set it back onto its cradle with trembling fingers, still half-buzzed from the massage seat, the music, the scent of sandalwood and power saturating the air. My skin tingled and my body hummed with anticipation.
What sort of date will this be?
We continued to go up the hill.
Through the tinted window, I watched the world transform. Cherry trees lined the road, their soft pink petals caught in the subtle gold of hidden lights.
It looked like we were driving through a dream.
I pressed my fingers against the door again, needing the coolness to steady myself.