Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
The distance between their mouths was nothing.
A few breaths away.
An almost kiss.
He exhaled slowly and lines of twisting, gray smoke moved from his lips into hers in a thin, warm current.
She received it—her chest rising, her lashes dropping—and for one suspended moment their faces stayed close.
His mouth nearly at hers.
The smoke the only thing passing between them.
My thumb stopped moving along her braid.
She closed her eyes and released the smoke toward the ceiling in one long silver thread.
Hiro pulled back.
The distance returned.
And in the half second before it fully did—in that suspended instance where their faces were still close and the smoke still hung between them—a vision seared through me like lightning.
Nyomi's braids wrapped tight around my trembling fists, her slick naked body arching as she rode my cock, her hips grinding down in devastating strokes.
Her head thrown back against my shoulder, exposing the vulnerable column of her throat. Nipples hard peaks against my palms. Her pussy’s inner walls clenching around my cock.
Her lips parted on that particular moan that always undid me completely. The broken delicious sound that always made me want to bite her.
And behind her—Hiro. His powerful hands gripping her glistening waist, hard enough to bruise. His muscled chest pressed against her spine, his teeth sinking into her shoulder as he pumped his cock into her ass, making her body vibrate against me. His head gleaming with sweat.
His eyes locked with mine over her writhing body, dark with desire and deeper, more dangerous emotions.
Ones that said mine, yours, and ours all at once.
The three of us, tangled, devouring, and desperate, boundaries dissolving in the heat and evaporating away like smoke.
I blinked.
Gone.
I sat with what remained—a heat low in my stomach that I didn't entirely want to examine and a cold thread underneath it that I wanted to examine even less.
Because the heat I understood.
It was the cold that troubled me.
These were the two people I loved most in the world and my body had not done the math that my mind had easily solved. The fact that I wasn't sure any of us would survive an arrangement like that.
No. I’m too possessive.
"Careful." I ran my thumb along her braid and that one word was doing heavy lifting. It was a reminder to all three of us.
They both looked at me.
Hiro tilted his head to the side. “No more shotguns with our Tora?”
I swallowed. “No more unless you want me to get a shotgun and put a hole in your chest.”
Both of them laughed, telling me the marijuana was doing exactly what it was supposed to do. And the lust along with the heaviness in the air disappeared.
“Party pooper.” Hiro passed the joint to her. “Here. Take another hit.”
“No way. This is pretty strong.” She turned around and brought the joint to my lips. “Here, baby.”
I closed my mouth around the tip and pulled slowly. The paper was warm from her fingers. From Hiro's lips before that. From Hiroko's slave rolling it in a room she never made it back to. Three people's warmth in one small thing.
I drew the smoke down.
It hit the back of my throat first—earthy, sweet, faintly floral—and then the smoke kept going.
Down into my chest.
Into the space below my sternum where I kept everything I couldn't show anyone.
The smoke found it all.
Settled into my soul. Yet, didn't fix it.
Just sat with it the way Hiro sat with us tonight.
Fuck. . .I didn’t know I needed this. . .
I held it in.
The room changed.
The edges softened first. The curved glass walls lost their sharpness. The moonlight on the tatami spread wider and warmer than it had any right to. The koto notes I'd stopped consciously hearing came back and each one landed on my skin like a lover’s fingertips.
Light caress.
Then gone.
Light teasing stroke.
Then nothing again.
I held the smoke longer and turned to the cherry blossom tree in its black stone planter. The form blurred slightly at the edges and then sharpened. Every petal became distinct on the branches.
Pressure built in my lungs.
I exhaled.
The smoke left me, slowly unraveling from my nostrils in thin gray wisps that rose up to the ceiling and turned silver before dissolving.
Yes. They’re right. This is strong.
A numbing sensation moved warm through my bloodstream. My hands felt heavy in the best way. The sort of heavy that meant they were finally resting after months of gripping things—weapons, knives, the world.
I looked at the ceiling.
And Hiroko was there.
Not visibly.
But present still.
She was in the cedar smell. She was in the joint itself. She was in Hiro's laugh from minutes ago and in the way Nyomi had fed my soldiers tonight without being asked.
Perhaps, Hiroko had known what she was doing when she told her slave to give Hiro that joint. Maybe, she knew we would need it if she didn’t return.
I don’t want to think about her anymore. I just want to be okay.