Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 115388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
I took note of where we were going, trying to figure out the location with each turn.
Tokyo changed in layers.
First came the gleam—Ginza's reflective, opulent hush. Where the streets whispered in luxury, and the buildings held old money. The lights here were tasteful and curated.
Aww. It’s here.
But we continued, and the shine began to smear.
Okay. . .it is somewhere else. . .
Glass towers gave way to chaos. The roads narrowed. Crowds thickened. Signs began to scream instead of speak.
Where the fuck are we going now?
Neon turned vulgar—hot pinks, bruised purples, acid greens—and the quiet elegance of earlier blocks mutated into the wild, erotic pulse of Shinjuku.
Oh.
My lids lowered, and I smirked.
Shinjuku? Really, Tora? Where could we be going here?
This was a direction I had not anticipated us taking tonight.
My Tiger wasn’t just planning a surprise—she was leading me into one of the only parts of Tokyo where the walls themselves had stories they didn’t dare repeat in daylight.
Well. . .I’m already more surprised than I thought I would be, Tora.
We slid past love hotels disguised as temples, hostess clubs built like floating lanterns, bars without names—just doorbells and shadows.
Steam curled from vents in the sidewalks. Laughter, drunken and lascivious, filtered through cracked windows and karaoke slats.
It smelled like mischief and latex.
Perfume and heat.
We began to head toward Shinjuku’s kinkier veins, where everything you weren’t supposed to want was sold.
I blinked.
Tora?
While this world paid tribute to me in many quiet ways—through hush money, loyalty, and the need for my protection, I had never walked into any of the places around here for pleasure.
Not once.
Until now.
A strange stillness settled over me as the Rolls continued.
Neon signs flickered above us—not with words, but different symbols. A bitten lip. A leather collar. A bare foot pressed to frosted glass.
I quirked my brows.
One building had nothing but a single red dot glowing over its doorway like an eye that never closed.
Another flashed the word Obey in English, over and over, as if casting a spell.
I stirred in my seat.
Then, a billboard flickered to life just as we passed beneath it—two masked lovers suspended mid-air in a Shibari rig, ropes burning gold under UV light. Their limbs trembled.
I caught a glimpse of a domme in stilettos standing on a balcony, smoking a cigarette while a man in a collar knelt beside her, holding her handbag in his teeth.
My throat tightened with a strange hunger.
My pulse surged with an emotion I hadn’t tasted since I was a boy clutching a ticket to my first amusement park. Giddy, breath-catching excitement climbed up my spine.
I nervously ran my fingers through my hair and couldn’t help but chuckle to myself.
What is she planning? I really have no fucking idea. . .
This was unnatural for me to experience with any woman.
I was always the puppeteer.
I remained the god behind the curtain.
Tonight, she had all the control, and that unsettled something in me so deeply that it. . . thrilled me.
Tora, I already knew I would never let you go. . .but now. . .the cage around you may close sooner than we both expected.
My lips curved.
It didn’t matter what came next.
Whether the club she chose was silk-and-champagne or chains-and-shadow. Whether the lights dimmed or the world exploded. Whether there was food or music there. It didn’t matter.
She had already won tonight because she gave me this moment.
This rush.
This foreign, electric high that no amount of wealth, blood, or legacy had been able to buy me.
I didn’t know what the hell was going to happen.
But I knew this; I was going to fuck her like I had never fucked anyone in my life.
Not just because I wanted her.
Not just because she was mine.
But because she had given me back something I didn’t even know I’d lost—wonder.
Naughty Tiger.
I leaned forward just as the car turned a dark corner and rolled into a private alley that’s path was shaded by thick walls of wisteria vines.
Tora, what is this place?
Chapter twenty-four
The Threshold
Kenji
One black, unmarked door stood at the end. It was narrow, windowless. No sign. Just matte black steel embedded into a concrete wall wrapped in thick, hanging vines.
It looked more like a mistake than an entrance.
At first, I thought my driver would keep pushing us along—surely this alley wasn’t the final stop. But then I saw him.
Reo.
My Roar waited beside the door like a statue.
I blinked.
Tora. . .what is going on?
My driver eased the Rolls to a stop. Before I could question anything, he was out, rushing to my side and opening the door.
Stunned, I grabbed the gift and stepped out.
The alley was silent.
My heartbeats were not.
Every step closer to Reo dragged me deeper into some new territory—mental, physical, and emotional.
And still, that unmarked door loomed.
I didn’t know what the hell Nyomi was leading me into. A sex club? A private kink theater? Some kind of exhibitionist altar where I’d be expected to perform while masked strangers watched from the dark? Or maybe it was none of that—maybe it was personal. Intimate. Just her. Just me. Just something that would ruin me slower.