“Like you’re tender. Sore, even. Like someone was . . . very large and ratherthorough.”
“Thoroughly enthusiastic was more like it,” he shot back, then reached up to adjust my collar, which was definitely not hiding the mark he’d left on my throat. “At least I didn’t make animal noises. You practically purred.”
“I did not—”
“You did. It was adorable.” He glanced down at himself. “Why is mykimono—?” It was inside out.
“Mm-hmm. So tell me now, great one,whowas distracted?”
As he stepped behind a shrub and quickly fixed his robe, I couldn’t help staring at his exposed skin, the way his muscles moved under—
“Now who’s thinking loudly again?” he teased.
We passed a group of younger students who took one look at us—disheveled, marked, practically glowing—and immediately began whispering. One of them made a crude gesture to his friend. That earned him a playful shove.
“We’re not subtle, are we?” I asked.
“Were we trying to be?”
I had to give him that.
Halfway down the next corridor, Kaneko pulled me into an alcove.
“What—”
Then his mouth was on mine, hot and urgent, pressing me against the stone wall.
“Just one more,” he breathed against my lips. “Before we have to behave.”
“You’reterribleat behaving, almost as bad as Esumi,” I pointed out, but kissed him back anyway.
“Ahem.”
We sprang apart to find one of the masters standing there, his expression somewhere between amused and exasperated.
“The dining hall is that way,” he said pointedly.
“Yes, Master,” we said in unison, which somehow made it worse since Kaneko didn’t even belong to the temple.
As the monk walked away, I heard him mutter, “. . . like rabbits. Every generation, like fucking rabbits.”
Kaneko was shaking with suppressed laughter. “Did he just—”
“Compare us to rabbits? Yes.”
“You’ve gotten louder, by the way,” Kaneko said conversationally.
I nearly tripped. “I have not—”
“Oh, youhave. That thing when I—”
“We arenotdiscussing this in the corridor!”
“But the way you—”
I kissed him just to shut him up, which backfired whenanothersomeone cleared their throat. This time it was an older monk who just shook his head and kept walking.
“We really need to make it to dinner,” Kaneko said.
