I blinked carefully at him, rolling the words around in my head. “Do the tattoos have meaning?”
He nodded and wrapped his long, slim fingers around my wrist. He dragged my hand up until I was touching the snake. “This is a hebi. That’s Japanese for snake. He protects me from bad luck.”
“Hebi,” I murmured.
Then he dragged my hand to the dragon, and I scraped my fingers over his flesh as he did. “Dragons do a lot of different things in my culture. They protect our family and our home. They guard us. I take mine with me.”
I curled my fingers and grasped his pec before I yanked my hand back and stumbled away from him. Heat assaulted my cheeks and I laughed nervously. “Here.” I shoved the pajamas at him and turned my back, rubbing the nape of my neck. I didn’t know why it mattered; I’d sucked his cock, so I knew what he looked like, yet I couldn’t bring myself to glance at him.
“I’m dressed.” The amusement in his tone had me blushing harder when I turned to look at him. As he’d said, he was dressed, and he grinned adorably at me. I studied his face, taking in the small beauty mark on his right cheek and the ring in his left nostril. I’d never thought I would be interested in someone with a pierced face, yet I liked him—a lot. “How about I get into bed? I’m exhausted. You get ready and come to bed. You did promise to be the big spoon, and I need a hug.”
I groaned in embarrassment, and he laughed, smacking me gently on the ass as he walked past me and got into my bed. I grabbed my pajamas out of my dresser and didn’t bother to go anywhere to change. His stare burned a hole in my back, but I didn’t let that phase me. Getting dressed in front of a man who’d both given and taken a blowjob from me was something I needed to do. I couldn’t shy away from everything that made me anxious, even if I wanted to.
Once I was dressed, I gained confidence and turned to look at him, and he waggled his eyebrows at me. I ran a palm over my face and shook my head when he whistled.
“Sexy.” He crooked his finger. “Come here, I need my big spoon.”
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth and moved with as much speed as my body would allow. Shifting the blanket back, I snuck underneath and let him snuggle against my chest. I sighed, wrapping my arm around him as sleep began to creep up on me already. This was nice. I could get used to falling asleep with Yukio in my arms.
* * *
It’d been two weeks since Yukio and I had starteddating, and I was enjoying every second. He didn’t ask for sex, but we’d given each other a few blowjobs. The entire thing was very easygoing, and in addition to him being a man, our relationship was very different from the one I’d had with my ex, Candy, which had been rushed and a horrible mess. Even at the beginning of that relationship I’d had a constant sense that it was doomed. Yukio didn’t push me, though, and he spent most nights with me when he wasn’t at practice—which was either for his band or basketball, apparently. I’d been meaning to ask him if he knew Alex, but I’d already forgotten what my son played. Wasn’t it baseball? I knew itwasn’tfootball.
I was terrible with the sports stuff, even though I loved my son.
Either way, Yukio spent more nights with me than not. While I graded papers or planned my next lesson, he studied and played on his phone. He didn’t breathe too loudly or make sounds that annoyed me, and it was all very domestic.
“The band’s playing again tomorrow night.” He glanced up from his phone and grinned at me. He was lying on the couch in his boxers, chest naked for my gaze to devour. The black ink was stark against his skin. Words and artwork weaved across his sinewy muscles like they were maps designed to tempt me to the treasure. I’d explored them, and I’d discovered with interest that he had none on his back.
I blinked at him and set down my electronic pen on the island. I’d been writing on my Supernote, a digital notebook that didn’t have the lighting a normal tablet did, which hurt my eyes. The experience was nice because I was writing my notes somewhere they wouldn’t get lost. “At the same club I went to last time?”
“Yeah. Mousetrap.” He rested his arm along the back of the couch and stretched out more. His cock plumped in his bright green boxers, and I couldn’t tear my attention away from how it hardened under my stare. “Would you like to come and watch us again?”
Every cell in my body wanted to sayno, but I’d grown accustomed to his presence over the last few weeks, and I enjoyed his company. He’d gone out of his way to be here with me and do things I enjoyed—watching movies and reading books. It was only fair that I be there for things he liked in return.
“Yes, I will.”
Yukio laid a hand on his naked thigh and slowly dragged it up until his fingers brushed the hardness in his underwear. My blood pressure spiked and a sharp thrill shot through me, settling low in my abdomen. My cock twitched and I licked my lips, staring as he traced the waistband with the tip of his forefinger.
“Want to come over here and suck my dick, honey?”
“Honey?” I chuckled. “That’s a bit of an old-fashioned name for your boyfriend, isn’t it?”
He grinned. “I like it because honey sounds close to hanii in Japanese, and it makes me feel good to call you something that’s similar in both languages.”
He’d been calling me that pet name for the last week, and I hadn’t asked him about it. Until now. “You like thinking of me that way?”
His grin widened. “Yeah. It pretty much means what it sounds like. Honey.”
I tilted my head. “Can you speak Japanese? I haven’t ever heard you do it.”
“Yeah.” He sat up slightly and kept toying with the waistband of his boxers, teasing. “I learned two languages growing up because my dad was still trying to understand English at the time. And my grandparents don’t speak English, for the most part. They say they’re too old to learn now.” He laughed. “But they’re stubborn, like Oyaji.”
“Oyaji? Is that your father?”
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “But father in Japanese is otousan. When I talk to Dad, I call him Oyaji and Otousan. Like English, it depends on the context and who you’re talking to. Children call their father otousan or sometimes papa, but as we get older, it turns into chichi, at least, when I’m talking about him to other people. A bit like going from daddy to father in English. I mean, sometimes I call him Dad, too. I guess it starts to sound complicated when I explain it to someone who doesn’t know anything about Japanese, but it isn’t.”
I nodded eagerly. I’d been curious about everything to do with him, and while I’d asked some small questions here and there, I hadn’t delved too deeply. I hadn’t thought we were at the point of talking about our past or families yet. He hadn’t asked about Alex, and I hadn’t given him any information, either.
