by Mia Watts
Her fingers curled in on her open hand atop a golden sheet of blonde hair. Parker’s lashes smudged her upper cheek in shadow. Kei’s gaze lingered on the line of her brow, the gentle slope of her nose, the natural upward curve of her lips. His chest tightened with the rightness of seeing her in his bed.
The thick black cotton lovingly draped across her breasts and wrinkled above the hand on her belly. It wasn’t designed to be erotic, but her fingers reposed just above her hidden pubis. Everything about her turned him on. She shook him to the core, made him question his beliefs and his life goals. She challenged his sense of order and added light to ancient family principals.
Parker wasn’t a pretty toy in a toy store or a new thing to be treasured and discarded when something better came along. She was a life’s ambition. Muddied tradition became fresh and clear through her eyes. He liked that about her. She made the things he’d taken for granted burst forth with energy. She made the simple beauty of a cherry blossom a metaphor that superseded his previous perspectives.
Wasn’t a life partner supposed to be someone you could grow with? Weren’t they the ones who made you a better person and whose life you could touch, too? She confounded him, twisted his insides, inspired him, stoked the flames of passion within him.
Would she feel the same way about his influence on her? He’d let her down and pushed her away. Had he made himself indispensable? He wasn’t sure he had. In the scope of things, she’d reached for him, and he’d knocked her hand away. She’d wanted him to trust her, and he’d chosen to trust himself out of fear for what that trust meant. She’d needed him to protect her, and he’d accused her in the lowest of ways.
Kei didn’t deserve her love. He’d ask for it anyway, and will her to accept him, then spend his life proving she hadn’t trusted in error. He’d never been a coward, yet it was perhaps all she had seen of him. The battle would be difficult in the fight for her heart.
Moving silently to his dresser, he opened the small, carved box. Behind him, someone closed his bedroom door and the distinct click of a key turning in the lock told him he’d been trapped with her.
“Sort it out,” he heard Jaxon mutter from the hall.
“Stay in there until you do,” Dan added, a warning note to his voice.
Kei’s laugh was no more than a brisk exhalation and a smile. He had every intention of making things right with her, if she’d let him. Kei lifted the thin gold chain from the antique heirloom box carved by his great, great grandfather. The delicate chain glittered in the low light, making the gold appear burnished and warm. At the end dangled a flower of beaten gold, worn through use and time—a gift from his grandfather’s grandfather through each male generation and bestowed upon the women they wedded. It had become his to carry and protect, and now his turn to pass to his chosen wife.
Cautiously closing the box, Kei took the chain and walked to the edge of his bed. Parker sighed in her sleep through parted lips as though she were aware of the relief he felt in coming to his decision. His hands shook as he watched her, wondering how he could have been misguided enough to think he could ignore the siren’s call of love when he’d looked into her eyes, tasted her lips.
Because he’d known her kiss was different. He’d known and made sure she wouldn’t tempt him from his studies with her soft lips again. He’d been a fool. There existed no rule that he could have one and not the other.
His gaze traveled down her body to the darkened shadow at the hem, just hiding the sweet swell of her pussy. Winding the chain and flower in his palm as he took a seat at her hip, Kei knew he’d waited long enough. He had to know.
Kei brushed the strands of hair off her cheek. “Sakura. Wake, my love.”
Parker drifted to wakefulness. She blinked into the semi-dark and smiled as she realized she had fallen asleep in Kei’s bed, waiting for him. Her pleasure turned to alarm and she sat up, fearful he’d seen her and left, that she’d missed her chance to talk to him.
“Shh, Sakura,” Kei whispered.
He cupped her shoulder. Lifting her chin, her gaze met his not a hand’s span away. Had God ever made a more beautiful man? Her breath caught. Light played across his face, highlighting his cheekbone, temple, the elegantly masculine curve of his jaw. The rest, cast into shadow, carried mystery and aching need.
“I fell asleep,” she said, feeling stupid for stating the obvious.
“Only for a little while,” he answered, his lips curving sardonically. His touch transferred to the side of her neck, lightly stroking her with the backs of his fingers. “I’ve been a fool. Will you forgive me?”
She’d forgive him anything if it meant he’d stay and keep touching her. If he’d stare deeply into her eyes like this forever. Still, she had to know what he believed about her or it would stand between them.
“What am I forgiving you for?” she asked.
He rested his forehead on hers. The downward tilt of his head caused his hair to swing stiffly forward. Black strands tickled her cheeks and cast his eyes into shadow. They sparkled through the low light with a glimmer of passion that told her more deeply than words how much he needed her to understand.
“So many things. Most horribly, Leo’s attack and what I said. In some ways, I wanted to believe you’d chosen him. It made my decision clear.”
“What decision?” To dump me? To believe I’m a whore? This isn’t going like I’d hoped.
“If you’d chosen Leo, then I could quit arguing with myself over whether or not you wanted me or all four of us guys. I knew it didn’t fit with your character to take several men as lovers. It seemed foreign to you.”
“It was. I’ve never done that before.”
“I have a confession,” he said.
Parker’s fingers lifted to his chin before falling away to rest on his thigh. “What is it?”
“I wanted you to myself. I was afraid that if it were only me, you’d sleep with me but never love me. Sharing you with the others diffused the tension. It allowed me to pretend that I had no risk since I hadn’t personally invested in a private relationship with you. I was wrong, Sakura.”
“Yeah, you were. I like the guys. Playing around with them was fun because you were there, but you were the only one I really wanted.”
He sighed. “I needed to hear that.” He stroked her cheek. “It gives me strength to tell you the rest, and I hope you don’t hate me afterward.”
“Go on,” she said. Here comes the other shoe.
“Once I knew you wanted me, I hoped I could keep your interest by denying you. No kissing, no sex with me alone. I hoped you’d keep wanting me even if it meant I couldn’t satisfy my own need for you. I used trickery to keep you close.”
“It was unnecessary. I already wanted only you.”
“I convinced myself with each day that you liked the idea of us as a household, a package not to be split. When Leo took an interest, I behaved irrationally. I thought what I’d feared—that you’d tire of us, of me, and settle with one man—had come to pass through your encouragement. I fixated on that and saw the two of you with those eyes, not for what it was.”
Parker cupped his face. “How very beta male of you,” she said, grinning. She kissed him, refusing to resist the urge that always seemed to plague her when he was around.
Kei kissed her back but pulled away abruptly. “There’s more.”
“Talk to me.”
“I love you,” he murmured gruffly. “My chest aches with it. My soul recognizes you as its other half. I’ve fought myself, and I’ve fought against you. I’ve been a foolish, foolish man. I want only you with only me. I want to honor you for a lifetime and the planes beyond it. Sakura, there’s no time limit on love but what I’ve placed on it. If you’ll have me, I humbly lay my heart with yours.”
“You’ve always had my heart. I’m drawn to you.” Had he asked her what she’d hoped he’d asked her?
“You misunderstand me,” he murmured thickly.
“Clear it up for me the
n.”
“Marry me.”
Her tummy flipped. Self-preservation begged another answer. “I can’t marry a man who doesn’t tell me how he’s feeling when he feels it. Waiting leads to too many misunderstandings, Kei.”
“My grandfather would approve of that philosophy,” he said. “It was against his teachings that I kept my thoughts about you to myself. It will not happen again, even if you don’t accept my proposal. You’ll have to hear of my love until your white hairs have white hairs.”
His smile warmed her and she snickered playfully.
“That’s a long time,” she teased.
“Until there’s no longer breath in my body. Should you marry another man, I’ll show him honor by telling him of my great love for you and how it’s my eternal penance to make it known until knowing is ended,” he whispered, a playful smile of his own in place.
Parker’s arms circled his shoulders. “Stop. The answer’s yes.”
Kei threw back his head and whooped. He looked over his shoulder and called to the house, “She said, yes!”
Cheers came from the hallway. Parker started with laughter.
“Get lost so I can make love to my woman,” he called.
“Can I go next?” Dan yelled back.
There was a chorus of Shut the fuck up, Dans muffled through the door.
Parker’s joy couldn’t be contained. “Never again, boys.”
Kei bent down to kiss her neck. Parker waited until the steps and guffaws from the hall had moved off before she relaxed.
“Why were you asleep in my room?” he asked against her neck.
“I wanted to make sure we talked and you didn’t avoid me.”
“Something particular you needed to say?” Kei asked. He lifted his head, giving her his full attention.
“I don’t want Leo. I don’t want the others. I want you. I love you.”
“After we graduate, we’re getting our own place,” he promised. “Then we can lie in bed together so you can tell me that every night. And I,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose, “will tell you that you’re buried in my heart, a part of me necessary to keep it beating. I love you, too, Sakura.”
He gently laid her back. Taking care with the chain, he dangled it over her chest, letting it rest where her heart beat so quickly for him. He pooled the chain over the pendant, letting the weight of it puddle so that she felt each beat more keenly for the touch and the importance burning in his eyes.
“This was given to me as it was given to every male in my family before me. It’s a gift from a man to his beloved. Will you wear it as a symbol of our devotion?”
The threat of tears clogged her throat. Parker nodded. She reached for it, but he shook his head.
“I want to see it on your naked flesh,” he murmured.
Her pussy clenched sweetly. She sure as hell wasn’t going to deny him that request. She thought he meant for her to strip, but again he shook his head when she made to take off her shirt. Parker settled back against the bed, anxious to see what he did and wondering if he’d be pleased that she wore nothing beneath the t-shirt.
Kei rested his hand on her thigh. “Let me.”
Parker nodded again, lost in his smoldering gaze.
He slid his hand up, taking the edge of the cotton with it as it bagged around his wrist. Kei’s nostrils flared when he exposed her pussy. She was moist, could feel the cool air touch between her legs and felt a little embarrassed by it, until he pushed her leg aside to examine her eager folds with hungry looks. “Pretty as petals.”
Kei’s fingers drifted over her pussy. Parker squirmed, wanting him to touch more, tease less.
“I’ve been thinking about why I call you Sakura, cherry blossom. For the Chinese, it represents power found in sex and a woman’s beauty. For the Japanese, it symbolizes the intensity of great beauty and its quickly ended mortality.”
“Which one did you decide?” she asked. She sensed his thoughtfulness was important, but his tormenting flicks and nudges were driving her to distraction.
“Culturally, I look to the lessons my forefathers shared. Heritage forms who we are, so we ought to look to it first for answers.” His fingers stilled and he pulled her shirt up her body. Parker helped him lift it over her head and off while he collected the necklace. “I feared whatever love you had for me would blossom and die quickly, or grow and consume me. But I made a critical error in my interpretation.”
Kei propped himself over her, looking down into her face. Parker licked her dry lips.
“Sakura, my love, you’re neither Japanese nor Chinese.”
She giggled nervously. “You’re just getting that?”
“The obvious seems to escape me,” he noted. “Neither definition could encompass who you are to me. They fall short, and I realized that loving you and being loved by you required a new definition. It must include beauty, power, feminine sexuality as the others do. But the full blossom and quick death can only describe the power and development of your orgasm.”
His eyes twinkled.
“You realize I’ll never look at a cherry blossom without blushing again, right?”
He chuckled. “But the blossom means other things to me too.”
Kei dragged off his shirt and Parker heard the familiar clink of heavy silver links strike his chest moments before she saw them.
“It now reminds me of the creamy texture of your skin and the flushed pink parts of you I taste. It reminds me of constancy, returning again and again to bloom, not as a single flower, but multitudes upon multitudes of joy and pleasure.”
Kei pushed off his pants, shoes, socks, all the while gazing into her eyes. Parker’s heart tattooed a quickened rhythm. Her breath caught as he smiled self-consciously in his passionate description of what she meant to him. She imagined she looked much the same way, hearing it.
“It represents your embrace and the welcome I feel in your arms as I lay with you. It represents the moments I linger with you alone, to wonder at the gift I’ve been given. I’m privileged to abide in your presence, to be rained upon with sweet kisses and spontaneous blooms of passion.”
“Oh, God,” she breathed.
“To be beneath you and over you at once like a—”
“—you’re incredible with words, but even I can tell you’re drawing this out a little much,” she interrupted.
He laughed, the twinkle in his eyes deepening. “Like sky and flowering carpet. It represents your—”
Parker cupped the back of his head and tugged him to her. “Shut up and kiss me, Lord Byron.”
“Lord Byron was gay.”
“Pablo Neruda?”
“Was a pervert,” he said.
“I’m good with that considering what I want you to do to me.”
Kei covered her, sinking against her body. She loved the way his hard body mashed against her softer one. Her breasts flattened beneath the planes of his chest. Kei’s erection pressed her belly and Parker wrapped her legs around him, encouraging him downward.
Kei did scoot lower. Too low. Or so she thought until he dragged the necklace chain between the lips of her open pussy and his breath fluttered against her wet flesh. The pendant bumped against her clit and Parker bit back a moan.
“Pink like the center of a blossom,” he murmured.
“Are cherry blossoms edible?” she asked hopefully.
“This one is.”
The chain disappeared, replaced with Kei’s eager mouth. Parker screamed with pleasure and he settled in, laving her folds with his tongue and suckling her clit like a man starved. She came hard, fast and shaking.
Kei lifted. “See? Like a cherry blossom, blooming fast and dying with the trembling of petals.”
That made her laugh.
Kei wiped his mouth on his arm, then rolled with her until she was seated over him. He held her head in his hands, kissing her with the same thorough hunger he’d shown her pussy. Parker clutched him.
His lips plied hers, alternating between
light rubs and careful licks. Sweeping his tongue inside, he stroked against her tongue, swallowed her moans, heated her with the friction of sensitive caresses.
She tasted herself on him, and for some reason, it didn’t bother her. Exotic and firm, his mouth was a beautiful extension of his body and soul. She wanted more. Wanted him inside her, taking and giving with the same act of completion. She needed him to seal his words by putting them into physical form and imbedding them the way he’d anointed her with the beauty of his promises.
It would be a christening and rebirth of a relationship that had started at cross-purposes and should have been doomed to failure. Instead, it had taken flight and transformed beyond mere words into a living, breathing existence. A loving entity that promised to grow with them. She could practically feel its presence surrounding them.
Her heart swelled with emotion. Flattening her hands on his chest, Parker pushed upright, dragging her fingers down to rest on his well-packed abdomen. His muscles flexed beneath her touch. Kei sucked in a sharp breath, hollowing his belly. The signs of arousal were written all over him, and she wondered if he knew how sexy it was. How much it turned her on to know she turned him on.
Parker rose to her knees, positioned herself over his shaft and sank onto his cock. Heated flesh to damp, clasping skin, she relished the absence of a condom. It was a freedom she’d never indulged before, and from the rapture on his face, she guessed the same was true for Kei.
Kei moaned, his fingers gripping her hips with trembling reverence before sweeping upward to capture her breasts. His touch mesmerized her, and she stilled to experience his hands on her body. She’d waited for this, longed for it, and the electric thrill of watching the wonder on his face become heated fascination when her nipples puckered under his ministrations, enthralled her further.
He flexed inside her. Parker kneaded his stomach, loving the way he felt, the smoothness of his skin. Kei thumbed her nipples, causing her to gasp. Sensation ricocheted through her, nipples to belly to squeezing pussy, and unconsciously, she curled into the sensation, lifting her hips and seating him.
