Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 115388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115388 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
She hadn’t even looked at me since the trays were delivered.
Until now.
Nyomi turned her head slowly, her lips curling in a kind of smile that could resurrect gods. “I know what’s on your mind.”
“Do you now?”
“You’re thinking nasty things.”
“Nasty’s too soft a word.”
“Oh?”
“You don’t want to know what I was just imagining.”
“I have a guess.”
“I bet you do.”
“But. . .” she reached for her napkin and unfolded it with maddening grace. “We’re going to take things slow tonight.”
I scoffed. “Slow? In a BDSM club?”
She shrugged. “The setting doesn’t dictate the speed.”
“No but the Dragon does.”
Her smile widened, feline and smug. “He doesn’t.”
My body hummed with lust.
She winked. “It’s all the Tiger tonight.”
And just like that, the air shifted, and an image hit me behind my eyes.
A black and gold dragon circling a tiger with a steady gaze. The tiger’s stripes shimmered, and she didn’t flinch when the dragon growled.
“Tora. . .” I leaned in. “There will be no slow this evening.”
She sipped her water like a queen, unconcerned. “We’ll see.”
I smiled. “How did you get Hiroko to let you rent this club out for the evening?”
“A magician never tells her tricks.”
“You will tell me yours.”
“I won’t.”
“You will.”
“Or what?”
“I’ll take it from your mouth one kiss at a time.”
Her eyes flickered with heat. “And if I bite you?”
“I would like that.”
Nyomi laughed and the sound turned me inside out. When she finished, she gave me a thoughtful look. “Dinner first. After that. . .maybe.”
“Maybe I don’t like waiting.”
“Maybe you’ll learn to like it.”
I gripped the edge of the table, loving her challenge. “And if I won’t be patient with waiting and take you whenever I damn well please?”
Nyomi didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just whispered back. “Then you’ll be punished.”
Lightning rippled down my spine. My hand nearly twitched in my lap. Every instinct inside me screamed to break the table in half and take her right there.
But I held still.
Barely.
Calm down. She’s got your cock in her hand.
I turned toward the trays, forcing myself to breathe, to think. “You really cooked all of this?”
“Yes.”
My voice came out lower than I intended. A growl wrapped in disbelief. “When did you do this?”
“All day today.”
Stunned, I blinked. “Where?”
“In my friend’s apartment.”
“Zo without the e?”
She chuckled. “Yes.”
I frowned. “That makes no sense. How did you do that?”
“Kenji, it makes all the sense. I cooked with ingredients and a stove.”
“No. I know how one cooks, Tora. But how did you slip all of this past my guards? Past my Roar?”
A mischievous smile curled on her lips. It was the kind of smile that could start empires and ruin them in the same breath. She lifted a bare shoulder in a wicked shrug. “Maybe. . .I’m just that good at hiding things from your people.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Did you bribe your guards?”
“Me?” She touched her chest. “I would never think to do such a thing. I’m a proper lady.”
Yet a wicked chuckle followed.
I narrowed my eyes at her but the corner of my mouth twitched with reluctant awe.
She’s a fucking nosy writer.
I needed to remember that.
Not just a woman in red leather who made my cock ache and my pulse misbehave. Not just a brilliant, sensual force who cooked like she wanted to seduce my soul.
She was a nonfiction writer—a professional infiltrator of closed doors and locked hearts.
Writers—especially journalists—were notorious for getting into places they didn’t belong. For bribing their way into courtrooms, corporations, and underground lairs with a smile, a lie, or a strategically placed compliment. They cleverly collected information the way assassins collected kills.
Nyomi was no different.
If anything, she was more dangerous.
Because she’d done it with honey and cast iron. With bourbon and spice. She’d turned a dinner into seduction and I’d walked in willingly, blind and smiling.
Note to self: Never underestimate a woman who writes for a living.
I stared at her across the table. “How did you bribe your guards?”
She smirked. “I would never.”
I turned back to the trays, inhaling deep. The scents hit me square in the chest.
A groan escaped before I could stop it, and then I looked back at her. “You bribed them with food, didn’t you?”
“Can you stop being so nosy so that I can begin our first course?”
I quirked my brows. “First course? There’s more than one?”
“Yes, Kenji.”
I couldn’t help it—I grinned. Big. Unrepentant. “You really cooked for me.”
She blushed, roseish brown blooming high on her cheeks. “Yes. . .I did.”
“How many courses?”
“Four.” Her gaze flicked to the tray. “Now stop asking so many questions and just enjoy the moment. . .Dragon.”
Four.
I was taking her back to the mansion tonight.
No discussion.
No polite offers.
No room for protest.
She would walk through my doors and be unable to walk back out.
“So. . .let’s begin.” Nyomi smiled. “First—”
“One moment.” I stood up.
"Kenji, what are you doing?"
"This distance between us is torturing me." I carried my chair from across the table and positioned it directly beside her, tight, like we were meant to share the same air, the same skin.