She licked her lips. “Oh, hell yes.”
“Nyomi.” Hiroko frowned.
My Tiger blinked. “Yes?”
“You can’t rush into domspace with this element.”
“Okay. I’ll calm down.”
I grinned through the euphoria.
Then, Nyomi brought the flame to my left shoulder and let it travel. The fire traced a path from my deltoid down through the curve of my bicep. She watched the flame the way a painter watches a brushstroke.
The heat piled on top of everything I was already feeling. Layer on layer. Sensation stacking like bricks inside my body that I couldn't climb over.
I groaned.
She moved to my right shoulder without being told.
Same stroke.
Same confidence.
Same unhurried pace.
Hiroko stepped back and crossed her arms.
I caught it through the haze—the shift in Hiroko's posture. She wasn't instructing anymore. She was observing. Watching Nyomi the way a sensei watches a student who no longer needed correction.
And Hiroko’s gaze was bright, wet at the edges, and full of a pride so fierce it filled the room. "Perfect. Now. . .the chest."
Nyomi looked down at the dragons sprawling across my pecs. The coiled bodies. The open mouths. The scales that caught the candlelight and rippled dark red to black.
“You’re so sexy.” She brought the flame to the dragon's spine.
And traced it.
God yes.
All I could do was helplessly watch the fire follow the ink across my left pec.
Over the coils.
Through the curve of the dragon's body.
The heat sank through my skin and kept going—past muscle, past bone, into a place I didn't know existed.
“Oh, fuck,” I whimpered and swore the tattoo moved. “Tora. Tora.”
The dragons’ scales rippled under the flame. Their jaws opened wider. Their claws dug deeper. For one second, I couldn't tell if she was burning me or waking the creature that lived beneath my skin.
Unable to control myself, I arched off the stone.
My mouth fell open. No sound left it. Just air trapped between my lungs and my teeth. My vision went white at the edges. My fingers splayed above the restraints—palms to the ceiling, shaking.
“Oh God!” I sank deep into this abyss of pleasure.
Hard.
