I'd have to call her back and figure out how to explain everything.
But first, tea and maybe. . .something to eat.
I pushed open the kitchen door, and the guards positioned themselves just inside, flanking the entrance but giving me space.
And that's when I saw him.
Hiro.
An empty sake bottle sat near his elbow.
A glass, still half-full, rested near his right hand.
He'd been drinking.
Hard.
He was slumped over the kitchen table. Shirtless. His head rested on his crossed, muscular arms. His long dark hair fell forward like a curtain, obscuring half his face.
But it was his body that stopped me cold.
Oh my God.
Hiro was. . .beautiful.
Devastatingly so.
His bare back was a canvas of ink and muscle, every line of his body carved with the kind of definition that came from years of brutal training. Broad shoulders tapered down to a narrow waist, and even in this collapsed position, I could see the power coiled beneath his skin.
But it was the tattoos that held my attention.
His entire back was covered in an intricate masterpiece that made my breath catch.
At the top, spanning across both shoulder blades, cherry blossoms bloomed in delicate shades of pale pink and white. But these weren't gentle blossoms drifting peacefully.
These were blossoms in a violent storm, petals being torn from their branches, some whole and some shredded, scattering downward across his spine in a cascade of destruction.
Beautiful.
Brutal.
Below the falling petals and taking up the center of his back, was a massive wave—the Great Wave, like Hokusai's famous print—rendered in stunning detail with shades of deep blue and white foam.
The wave crashed and curled with terrifying power.
But within the water. . .
I took a few steps his way to look closer.
There are faces in the water. Dozens of them. Some peaceful. Some screaming. All drowning and being pulled under by the relentless current.
And at the bottom, near his lower back where the wave seemed to crash against his skin, koi fish swam desperately upstream through the violent water.
Black and gray.
Scales rendered in painstaking detail.
Their mouths open as if gasping for air.
