And I still wanted him so badly my teeth ached.
That should have terrified me.
But the terror and the desire had tangled together somewhere inside me until I couldn't pull them apart. Until they were the same rope, the same flame, the same relentless heat pooling between my hips with every step.
Hiro was the ocean.
But Kenji was the volcanic tide that pulled me under.
We continued walking, and I thought we would turn right toward the main part of the mansion.
Or left toward his wing.
Instead, he stopped us right in front of my office door.
O-kay. . .
I looked at him. "Why are we—"
"Open it."
“Alright.” I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
My desk had been moved against the wall. In its place stood three women—one with brushes and palettes arranged before her, another with combs and pins laid out in neat rows, and a third seated in the corner with a velvet case across her lap.
A single gown hung on a stand near the window. The afternoon light illuminated every detail.
And it was on fire.
The fabric seemed to burn without heat—reds bleeding into oranges at the hem, oranges melting into golds as they rose toward the bodice. The colors shifted and moved even on the stand, alive in a way fabric shouldn't be.
Wow.
I stared at it. At all of it. My office transformed into a dressing room. A team of women waiting. A gown that burned.
Then, I turned back to Kenji.
He stood in the doorway, watching me take it all in. Those dark eyes tracked every emotion crossing my face. "I know you had set plans, but I'm claiming your entire day."
My breath hitched.
"I know you wanted to get your hair braided today. I know you planned to show movies for the island, to lift morale. And I appreciate that. I appreciate you and the way you think about others." He stepped closer. "But we're going to do that tomorrow. Today, I want to take care of you. Because you've been taking care of everyone else."
My throat tightened.
"And understand. . .I have things I need to do too. Meetings. Calls. Weapon inspections. Strategy sessions that should have started an hour ago." His hand found my jaw and tilted my face up to his. "I'm putting all of it aside. Because you—and what we have—is more important than any of that."
My eyes watered.
"I want to heal the fracture."
I swallowed.
"The fracture that happened this morning. I felt it, Tora. The crack between us. And I refuse to let it widen."
He felt it too.
That crack I'd been carrying in my chest all day, and he was stopping everything to mend it.
