Page 86 of Kotori
"I imagine so. You've been fighting quite a battle with yourself, haven't you?" He rises from his cushion and moves closer, suddenly towering over me while I remain seated in vulnerable position. "Hating yourself for how eagerly you spread your legs for me."
I have been fighting that exact battle, losing ground every hour as my body craves what my mind knows is wrong. "Stop," I breathe, but the word has no force behind it.
"Stop what? Speaking the truth? Acknowledging what we both know happened in those gardens?" His fingers trace the air just inches from my face, not quite touching but close enough that I can feel the heat. "You came on my cock while my daughters waited in the pavilion, kotori. You told me you were mine and meant every word."
The casual recounting of my surrender sends electricity racing through my overwrought nervous system. I have to grip my hands together to keep from reaching for him.
"I see it in your eyes," he continues, voice dropping to something intimate and knowing. "The shame. The self-hatred. But underneath all that guilt, there's still the need, isn't there? The desperate craving for more of what I gave you that night."
I can't answer because it's true. Every nerve ending feels exposed, every breath a reminder of how thoroughly he's destroyed my sense of self. The unfulfilled arousal has settled into my bones like fever, worsened by the knowledge of what it makes me.
"Please," I breathe, hating myself for the word but unable to stop it.
"Please what?" His thumb finally makes contact, tracing along my jaw, and I have to bite back a moan. "Please touch you? Please give you more reasons to hate yourself? Please prove that you're exactly what you fear you are?"
"Yes," I gasp, beyond caring about pride or dignity or the moral implications. "Please, I can't... I need..."
"You need to stop fighting what you are." His grip tightens slightly on my face, forcing me to meet his eyes. "You need to understand that every moment of shame, every second of self-hatred, comes from denying your true nature."
I nod frantically, tears starting to blur my vision. "I understand. I'm sorry. I was wrong about everything, please just—"
"Shh." His thumb brushes across my lower lip, and the gentle contact makes my whole body tremble. "Come to the training grounds at eight tonight. I'll be sparring with Takeshi. Wait for me there."
"Will you," I swallow hard, shame burning in my cheeks even as arousal floods through me. "Will you touch me?"
His smile is devastating and completely without mercy. "That depends entirely on whether you're ready to stop hating yourself for being exactly what I made you to be."
He rises and moves toward the door, leaving me kneeling on the floor with need clawing at my insides and the terrible understanding that relief will come only when I accept what I've become.
"Eight o'clock, kotori," he says without turning back. "Don't be late."
The door slides closed behind him, and I collapse forward with a broken sob.
I hate him. I hate myself. But most of all, I hate how desperately I want him to finish destroying whatever's left of the woman I used to be.
23
Paige
Byevening,I'mfracturing.
I stand outside the training grounds with my heart hammering against my ribs and self-loathing burning in my throat.
This is insane. I'm a grown woman, a professional, someone who used to make her own decisions and control her own life. I shouldn't be standing here, desperate for the attention of the man who kidnapped me and turned me into this pathetic, needy creature.
But I can't walk away. The need is too strong, the shame too familiar now to fight. He's broken something inside me that I'm not sure can be fixed.
And the worst part? I'm not sure I want it fixed anymore.
At exactly eight o'clock, I follow the directions to the training grounds at the back of the compound. Traditional dojo space where generations of Matsumoto men have practiced their deadly arts.
I slide open the door and my breath stops.
Kaito and Takeshi face each other in the center of the wooden floor, both wearing simple white gi and hakama, both holding bokken with the casual expertise of men who've been training since childhood. But it's Kaito who commands my attention—the way the loose fabric moves with his body, how sweat gleams on his exposed forearms, the controlled power in every movement as they spar.
This is him stripped down to essentials. Not the businessman in expensive suits, not the father in casual clothes, but the warrior underneath all those civilized layers.
They don't acknowledge my presence immediately, too focused on their deadly dance. Wood strikes wood with sharp cracks that echo off traditional walls. Takeshi lunges forward with impressive speed, but Kaito flows around the attack like water, countering with a strike that would have split his second-in-command's skull if the blade were real steel.
