My nipples stiffened.
“I also think you’ll say yes because the hunger between us isn’t casual. It’s chemical. And, you’re just as ruined by wanting me as I am by needing you.”
Lust blazed through my body.
“And. . .”
I widened my eyes.
“I think that once I have you in my space, I’ll craft a kingdom around your pleasure—so decadent, so tender, so addictive—that freedom won’t even tempt you. In fact, for you, leaving would feel like self-destruction.”
I gulped. “So. . .you would build me a paradise disguised as a prison?”
“An opulent one with gold bars, diamond locks, and a bed shaped from your moans. You’ll thank me for never finding the key.”
Those sentences wrapped around my ribs and tightened like a corset. I was both flattered and afraid. Both turned on and tempted to run.
“Tora. . .you must say yes. . .I’ve kneeled before no man. No God. No boss. And definitely no other woman. But for you, I dropped like I was made to live at your feet.”
My heart boomed in my ears.
I didn’t know how long I sat there, staring at him.
Time fractured.
A breath became a mile.
God.
He made obsession sound like shelter.
Possession sound like praise.
The pink bow on the box in my lap trembled, and I realized my hands were shaking.
And for one moment. . .I wondered what it would be like if I didn’t say yes and he actually let me walk away from him. What would life look like without Kenji Sato?
I imagined it all. The empty mornings. The silence that would ache. I saw the other men. Safe ones. Smiling ones. Ones who'd never kneel for me. Who'd never set the world on fire just to keep me warm. Who'd never bleed for my yes.
I saw a version of myself that looked fine from the outside, but she was dim inside. Hollow in the ways that mattered.
And I hated her. That future, that world, that lifeless shell of me.
Fuck. . .
I wasn’t made for mild. I was made for madness. And Kenji was the only man who’d ever looked at me like I was both the fire and the altar it burned on.
“Tora, will you say yes?”
I put my attention back on him and knew that I wasn’t just answering a question. I was surrendering a version of myself that existed before him—one who believed love couldn’t coexist with danger.
Still. . .for him. . .I was willing to let that part of me go too.
I trembled. “Yes.”
His breath left him in a rush as if my yes had rewritten the story of his life in real time.
“I’m just. . .nervous, Kenji.”
