Every time Nyomi opened her mouth and changed the shape of my battlefield, I wanted to bow in gratitude and lock every door in the same breath.
Fear was older than any of us, and it learned our habits, our shortcuts, our tells. It knew which memory to show us when it thought we needed to be terrified.
Fear didn’t argue with logic.
It argued with funerals.
“I’ll consider it,” The line of my jaw twitched. “But I won’t move a piece on this board without speaking to my Heart first. I’ll give you my answer after I talk to her.”
A huge smile spread across Reo’s face.
“She’s not bait. She’smyHeart. I’ll talk to her. If she wants in, it happens onmyconditions and there will be lots of them. It would have to be daylight only, fixed routes, layered decoys, Hiro leads, Claws always diamond around her, and there is always a live feed for me.”
“Understood.”
I shook my head. “I’m already asking her to make the Claws dinner. Now I’m fucking commissioning her to be my detective.”
Reo blinked. “Dinner? For the Claws?”
“Yes, Hiro batted his lashes and I crumbled.”
“But. . .justthe Claws?”
I frowned.
Reo quirked his brows. “I’m the Roar. Am I not invited?”
Exhausted with them all, I turned around and headed up the stairs. By the time I climbed a few steps, the tightness in my chest now had a pulse of its own, drumming against my ribs like it wanted out.
I needed rest.
I needed heat.
I needed her hands, her mouth, her pussy.
“The Roar is more important than the Claws,” Reo called after me. “Does she know this?”
With each step, the fatigue sat heavy in my bones and Tet’s blood splatter on my chest felt like a second shirt glued to my skin.
I needed a shower hot enough to peel the night off me—steam, soap, her hands on my shoulders pressing the iron out of my muscles.
But more than water, I needed my Tiger.
I wanted the heat of her pinned under my palms, the curve of her hips in that skirt branded into my hands, the clean scent of her hair cutting through copper and gun oil. I wanted to taste the laugh she kept just behind her teeth, to feel her legs tighten at my waist, to take all that softness and make it mine until the world went quiet.
And if she wanted me to kneel or crawl today. . .I would.
Power had crowded my ribs all day. The thought of kneeling for her made space inside me and even pushed some of the pressure away.
“Kenji,” Reo called up the stairwell. “She whispered one more thing.”
I stopped on the landing and looked down. “What was it?”
“She wants a Japanese translator to stay by her side, and she wants me to start giving her Japanese lessons.”
My grip tightened on the rail. “She asked foryouspecifically to teach her?”
“No. She asked if I could find her a good teacher,Idecided that would be me. Who else but the Roar?”
