Page 168 of Dragon 7

“My parents kept secrets. We are not them. We don’t keep secrets. . .”

I closed my eyes.

“We don’t, Tora.”

“Okay.”

“And you are to never make a decision like that on your own and deal with all that fucking pain by yourself, I don’t care who is coming for us. I don’t care about how many enemies, let me fucking die before you—”

“No.” I opened my eyes. “No.”

“You weren’t supposed to bleed for us, Tora. We. . .were supposed to bleed for you.”

And then his all-consuming love roared through our bond.

It came like wildfire racing through a bone-dry forest, devouring every wall I'd built inside myself. The inferno detonated the guilt. My fears curled inward and became smoke. My grief shifted and glowed into dying embers that began to hiss and crack beneath the unbearable heat of his devotion. One by one, those carefully stacked defenses surrendered to the blaze until nothing remained but us, standing in the burning aftermath.

The fire didn't consume my pain.

It burned beside it, fierce enough to keep me from freezing inside my own sorrow and his.

It did not ask my pain to leave.

It simply wrapped itself around every broken piece of me, fierce enough to keep the darkness from reclaiming what his love had already chosen as its own.

It was hard to speak.

All I could manage was. . . "I love you, Kenji."

"Thank God for that." And then, he kissed me.

His mouth met mine, and the whole night tilted. He tasted like desperate merciless want held too long.

Dark, greedy need.

Overwhelming hunger.

The warmth of his mouth spread across me, and the war moved out of him. I felt it come up through his chest to meet my lips—every bullet, every battle, every moment where he had believed he might not come back to me crashed into that kiss.

My breathing grew ragged.

I opened my mouth and sucked on his tongue.

A searing hot primal groan left him.

Kissing me some more, he raised his hands and ran his fingers through my braids. Every place his fingers pressed into my scalp sent heat cascading downward, pooling low into my pussy. And soon he gathered a fistful of my braids, and he tilted my head back, so his tongue could go deeper.

Oh.

I closed my eyes and drowned in a symphony of sensations. The world narrowed to him. Colors bled behind my closed eyes—deep reds and amber, pulsing in time with my own heartbeat.

His other arm wrapped around my waist and locked to me, holding us both up.

I tasted salt and opened my eyes. That was when I realized that. . .we were both crying. And that was what was spilling into my mouth.

His tears and mine.

His lips left me only to find my mouth again from a new angle. His breath came ragged between kisses. Groaning, he caught my bottom lip with his teeth and gently bit. A small bright pain bloomed and he soothed it with his tongue in the same breath.