Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
I stared at him, and the snakes around my body loosened their grip and fell away.
I put my view back on the sketchbook. “But is Mami involved or was she just able to get the Eyes to sneak her in?”
I traced my eyes over the drawing again—the intimacy of it, the invasion of it, the desperate love bleeding through every charcoal stroke.
Mami hadn't just drawn Kenji's body. She'd drawn the version of him she prayed existed underneath all that ice.
I flipped the page, and my breath caught hard in my chest. "Uh. . ."
Hiro was close enough beside me that I felt the warmth of his body along my arm as we both looked down.
The sketch was. . .intimate in a way that made my pulse skip.
Hiro.
Nude.
On a bed.
And he wasn't alone.
And he was definitely fucking.
The composition was framed strangely—edges darkened, the perspective slightly skewed, as if Mami had captured the scene through a narrow opening.
A closet door, maybe.
A gap in a doorway.
Something that said I shouldn't be seeing this while simultaneously screaming I couldn't look away.
Hiro dominated the center of the page, his body rendered in painstaking detail. Every muscle in his back was defined—the broad wings of his shoulder blades, the deep valley of his spine, the dimples just above the swell of his sculpted ass.
His skin glowed against the darker shadows of the sheets beneath him, charcoal smudged and layered until he looked almost luminous.
He was on his knees, thighs spread, his weight braced on one powerful forearm while the other hand gripped the headboard above him. The position made the muscles in his arm bulge, veins standing out like rivers beneath his skin.
Behind him—pressed flush against his back—a man.
The man's body was sculpted, beautiful, rendered with the kind of obsessive detail that only longing could produce. His chest was broad, his stomach ridged with muscle, his hips snapped forward in a way that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. One of his hands splayed possessively across Hiro's stomach, fingers digging into the hard flesh there. The other gripped Hiro's hip, pulling him back, holding him in place.
His face was partially obscured—turned into the curve of Hiro's neck, mouth pressed to the spot where shoulder met throat. But his jaw was sharp, his hair dark and disheveled, and even in charcoal I could see the tension in his body. The coiled power of a man lost in pleasure.
And beneath Hiro—a beautiful woman.
She lay on her back, her body arched upward. Her spine curved off the mattress, her head thrown back against the pillows, her lips parted in what could only be a moan.
Her big breasts were full, nipples stiff, rendered with such careful attention that I could almost feel the weight of them.
Her thighs bracketed Hiro's hips, her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him deeper.
One of her hands clutched the sheets beside her head, fingers twisted in the fabric. The other reached up—not to Hiro, but past him, her palm pressed flat against the chest of the man behind him.
Connecting them.
Completing the circuit.
Three bodies.
One rhythm.
One unbroken line of ecstasy.
Mami had captured the moment like a confession—every shadow, every point of contact, every place where skin met skin.
The sheen of sweat on Hiro's back.
The flex of muscle in the man's thighs.
The soft give of the woman's belly where Hiro's weight pressed into her.
The expressions destroyed me most.
Hiro's face was turned slightly, his profile visible—eyes half-closed, lips parted, jaw slack with pleasure. He looked undone. Wrecked. Like whatever was happening to his body had short-circuited every defense he'd ever built.
The woman beneath him wore bliss like a mask—brows drawn together, mouth open, caught in that suspended moment right before release.
And the man behind him—what little I could see of his face—looked possessive. Hungry. Like he desperately hoped he could claim Hiro, but knew he never would.
It was gorgeous.
Too gorgeous.
Too intimate.
Mami had captured them and clearly stole a moment she was never meant to see, preserving it in charcoal and shadow so she could return to it again and again.
I couldn't breathe.
Hiro, beside me, didn't tense.
Didn't blush.
Didn't look away for even a second.
His voice was casual. "She drew this after an Opera in Italy. I recognize the woman and man. This was a year ago."
My head snapped toward him. "This actually happened?"
He nodded, completely unbothered. "Yeah. It’s a pleasure ladder. I like them."
"A what?"
“Pleasure ladder.” His voice dropped to a wicked tone that slid right under my skin. "Three people. One rhythm. One bed. Pleasure moving through all at once until everyone reaches their destination."
Heat rushed up my neck.
He saw it immediately—and smirked. “You're blushing."
"I'm not—"
"You are." He looked back down at the page. “Do you understand now what a pleasure ladder is, or do I have to show you?”
“I’ve got it.” I nervously closed the book.
He chuckled.
I swallowed. “So. . .she is good at spying on people and capturing moments.”