Page 73 of Kotori
"Stop," I whisper, without conviction. "Your daughters."
"Are watching the fireworks," he completes, his hand sliding higher until his fingers brush the junction of my thighs. "Just like everyone else. No one is looking at us, kotori. No one but mesees how much you want this. How much you've been aching for it since I left you bound and desperate last night."
He's right. In the darkness, with all eyes on the sky, no one notices the way his hand disappears beneath the folds of my yukata. No one sees how my legs part slightly, betraying my desire even as I glare at him.
"I hate you," I breathe as his fingers find bare skin above my thigh-high stockings.
"I know." His smile is all satisfaction and dark promise. "And yet you're wet for me already. I can feel it. You've been wet since I left you tied in my rope, haven't you? All night, all day, just waiting for my touch."
His fingers trace the edge of my underwear, teasing but not yet invading. "Three weeks, kotori. Three weeks thinking about your mouth, your taste, the sounds you make when you're coming apart. Then last night, watching you struggle against my rope, seeing the marks it left on your perfect skin. I almost came back to you. Almost."
A particularly large firework bursts overhead, bathing everything in blue light, and I use the cover of appreciative gasps to shift, trying to dislodge his hand without drawing attention.
"Not here," I hiss. "Not with your daughters so close."
"Then come with me," he says, withdrawing his hand with reluctance. "Now."
He rises smoothly, addressing his daughters in Japanese too rapid for me to follow. Mizuki responds with a nod, her eyes flickering briefly to me with an expression I can't quite read.
"My daughters will be perfectly safe with my security team," Kaito says, extending his hand to help me up. "I've told them we're going to get a better view of the finale."
"And they believed that?" I can't keep the skepticism from my voice.
His smile is knowing. "Aya did. Kohana pretended to. And Mizuki..." He shrugs. "Mizuki understands more than she lets on."
The thought of his teenage daughter understanding what's happening between us makes my cheeks burn with shame, but before I can protest, he's guiding me away from the pavilion, down a path that leads deeper into the surrounding gardens.
"Where are we going?" I ask, acutely aware of his hand at my back, of the heat radiating from his body in the warm night.
"Somewhere private," he replies, guiding me around a bend in the path where the festival lights fade and the darkness deepens. "Somewhere I can finish what I started last night. What you've been desperate for since I left you bound and aching in my rope."
We emerge into a small clearing surrounded by maple trees, their summer foliage creating a natural screen from the main festival. A stone bench sits beneath the largest tree, barely visible in the darkness except when fireworks illuminate the sky overhead.
"Here." He turns me to face him, his hands settling on my waist with possessive certainty. "Where I can hear every sound you make."
His kiss, when it comes, is brutal in its intensity, weeks of separation concentrated into the crush of his lips against mine, the invasion of his tongue, the scrape of his teeth. I should fight it, should push him away and remind him that I'm not his to command.
"Matsumoto-sama," I whisper, my body betraying me as I press toward him despite my lingering pride.
He captures my mouth with his, rewarding my proper address with a kiss that steals my breath. I surrender to this madness, letting him lead as he always does, as he expects to.
When he backs me against the trunk of the maple tree, the rough bark scrapes against my silk-covered shoulders as he presses the full length of his body against mine.
"I've thought about this every night," he murmurs against my throat, teeth grazing sensitive skin. "Thought about bending you over my desk the moment I returned. About making you scream my name loud enough for the entire compound to hear. Did you think of me all night, kotori? While you were bound in my rope, unable to move, unable to find relief?"
"You know I did," I whisper, unable to lie after what he'd done to me. "You made sure of it."
"Yes," he agrees, satisfaction evident in his tone. "That was precisely the point. To ensure that by the time we reached this moment, you'd be incapable of resistance."
His words send liquid heat pooling between my legs, making me press my thighs together in search of relief.
"But this is better," he continues, one hand sliding up to cup my breast through the silk. "Taking you during Tanabata, when even the stars are aligned for lovers who shouldn't be together."
"We're not lovers," I protest weakly, even as my head falls back, giving him better access to my throat. "This is just—"
"Just what?" His thumb brushes over my nipple, making me gasp. "Just fucking? Just obsession? Just the best thing either of us has ever felt?"
Before I can answer, he drops to his knees before me, hands sliding up under my yukata with deliberate slowness. The reversal of our usual positions—him kneeling before me instead of the other way around—makes my breath catch.
