Nyomi stood in sunlight I couldn't find the source of. Her belly was round and her hand rested on it, and she was smiling at me the way my mother used to smile at my father before the blood, before all the women he would fuck in his library at night. Choking them.
"His body is flooded with endorphins, oxytocin, and endocannabinoids all at once. It's the same chemical cocktail the brain produces during a runner's high, an orgasm, and deep meditation—combined."
Children. I could hear children laughing somewhere beyond the cherry blossoms. Small feet on grass. A little girl with Nyomi's eyes. A boy with my jaw and eyes.
"This is the highest natural high the human body can produce, and you put him there, Nyomi. With fire."
The boy turned and a shadow stretched behind him. Long, scaled, winged. It rippled across the grass and the little girl laughed and chased it.
"But here is my warning." Hiroko's voice sharpened just enough to cut through the haze. "A man this deep can't protect himself. He will say yes to anything. He will beg for more when his body needs less. His pain receptors are buried under so muchneurochemistry that he won't feel damage until it's already done."
The garden flickered. The children's laughter dimmed.
"You are his safety now, Nyomi. You are the prefrontal cortex he no longer has. Every decision about this scene—when to push, when to pause, when to stop—is yours. He has surrendered that to you, whether he knows it or not."
Nyomi. Just Nyomi. Standing in the garden with petals in her hair and her hand on her belly and my children playing in the shadow of a dragon that didn't scare them because it was their father.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes." Nyomi's fingers were still on my neck, counting beats.
"Good." Hiroko signaled to one of her assistants. "He needs fabric. Cover him."
The assistant appeared with dark silk and gave it to Nyomi.
I surfaced just enough to feel her hands on me.
My eyes watered. “No, Tora. Don’t cover my cock with that. Cover it with your mouth. Suck it.”
Nyomi draped the silk across my hips and cock. Slowly, she smoothed the fabric over the torn leather and over the hard length straining underneath.
“Yes, Tora. There we go.”
Then, the wicked woman spread her fingers wide across my lower stomach and adjusted the silk there.
“Tora, suck my cock.” I shivered. “Please. What do you want? I’ll give you anything.”
She looked down at me. “Silence.”
I arched my eyebrows.
“Be my good little Dragon.” Then she dragged her palm across the full length, right through the silk.
One long, slow pass.
“Mmm!” I arched off the stone. My cock kicked against her palm. A thick pulse of pre-cum soaked through the silk and she felt it. I knew she felt it because her hand paused, right over the head where the fabric must have been the wettest.
“Are you going to be good?” She pressed down and let me feel the weight of her palm. The warmth. The fact that she could end me right here if she chose. “Are you?”
“Y-yes.” I was shaking.
Full-body tremors that started in my chest and radiated outward. The sensation of her hand—that deliberate, possessive touch—had taken whatever was left of the Dragon and buried it.
There was no Dragon on this slab.
There was only a man.
Trembling.
