“And I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about. . .her washing my hair and braiding it. Her caressing my skin. It’s. . .”
“What?”
“It’s melted the frozen places buried deep within me." Rin lifted his eyes from the book and looked past me, focusing on the window. “When we made love. . .I saw every emotion move across her face. Wonder. Heat. Hunger. Affection. I’m addicted. . ."
That confession hung in the air between us.
I thought of my Tora's eyes when she rose over me this morning. The way she had looked at me without flinching and told me how much she loved me.
I understood exactly what Rin meant about addiction. I had lived my whole life surrounded by bodies. Women had moaned beneath me. Climbed into my lap. Trembled around mycock. Worshipped the Dragon because of fear, power, money, violence, and reputation.
Yet none of it had ever reached the deepest part of me.
Then came my Tiger.
And now I craved things that would have once sounded absurd coming from my mouth years ago. Her eyes finding me first thing in the morning. Her fingers drifting through my hair while she talked. The sound she made when she laughed too hard and tried to hide it.
The way she touched my chest absentmindedly as though her body sought mine without permission from her mind.
I was addicted to her seeing me. That was the terrifying part too.
I was addicted to being witnessed by her because when she looked at the ugliest parts of me, she didn’t recoil.
She stepped closer.
And that had become more intoxicating than violence ever was.
“Kenji. . .for my entire life, sex had been hunger. With her, it became resurrection.” His voice cracked on that last word.
“Resurrection?”
“Maybe not resurrection.” He ran his fingers through his braids. “All I can say is that. . .I entered her arms a monster. I emerged from them reborn into something else.”
“What?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. All I know is. . .when I close my eyes now, I do not see darkness anymore. I see her looking back at me.” Rin frowned. “I would do anything for you. Do you understand that?”
“I know.”
“You saved my life.”
My jaw tightened.
“But we just started, and she saved my life too. She pulled me out of a place no woman has ever reached. The place where I had been alone since I was that young man that raced away from the palace.” Rin grabbed the book and closed it. “I won’t take her life away, if I fall in battle tomorrow night.”
I respected the answer.
How could I not, when I felt the same way toward my Tiger?
But as he walked out of my office, I understood something I had not understood when we walked in.
My Fang was in love.
Deeply.
Completely.
Quietly.
