by Gia Dawn
She wanted more than an amazing fuck in the night, she understood with a clarity that took her by surprise. More than ropes and masks and secrets. She wanted a true relationship. Someone to laugh with, cry with, plan for the future with while they huddled close in bed at night. Her Bashuki offered none of those things.
By morning she was red-eyed and despondent, but she hadn’t changed her mind. She would never again meet the amazing stranger at the Red Mask club. If she could find another person to finish polishing her performance of the Tea Ceremony, that would be fantastic. If not, it would not be a complete disaster because she hadn’t told her father she was even thinking of doing something so traditional.
Maybe Ian could help. The thought sent her mood soaring. She had Ian. Now that her ties with her teacher were cut for good, she could turn her full attention to the other man who had recently come into her life. The one her parents were so adamant she marry.
The man who made her smile, gave her crazy chocolates and made no harsh or strange demands upon her body and her soul.
After getting dressed and pulling her hair back in a ponytail, Sakura called the Red Mask and left a message for Madame Manette. By the time she hung up the phone she felt like crying, but she splashed cold water on her face and put on a dab of makeup to hide her swollen eyes. By the time she knocked on Ian’s hotel room door, she’d managed to get her emotions under control.
He looked nearly as haggard as she felt when he opened the door and saw her standing there. “Sakura? What are you doing here?” He made no move to let her inside as he ran a hand across the stubble on his cheek.
A sinking feeling hit her in the stomach. “Sorry. I should have called. Did I interrupt something?”
“No.” He shook his head without even a glimmer of a smile. “It’s just that—”
He was interrupted by a woman’s delicate voice. “Ian? Is someone there?”
Sakura watched in trepidation as the door was pulled open to reveal a beautiful woman standing just behind Ian. Her heart pounded so hard it gave her a headache as she recognized the woman—the same woman she had watched in the Tea Ceremony video so many times before. She knew every line of the woman’s face, every single streak of silver in her straight black hair. She gaped in stunned silence, unable to utter a recognizable syllable.
“Ian,” the woman chided, reaching out to tussle his hair. “Where are your manners? Please introduce us.” When he remained as motionless as Sakura, the woman bowed gracefully. “Konnichiwa, I am Chiharu Shoji-Hayes, Ian’s mother.”
Ian’s mother!
Sakura’s head spun as she realized the implication. Ian’s mother was also her Bashuki’s mother—the women were one and the same which meant the men were one and the same.
She held on to the wall, refusing the woman’s offer of assistance as she glared at Ian. “You bastard,” she finally managed to spit out. “You lying bastard.” With that she turned to flee, swallowing back a groan of pain as the other woman reached out to grasp Sakura’s injured wrist.
“Wait, please,” she said, her face a mask of horrified shock. “I am certain there has been some mistake.”
“No mistake, Mama,” Ian replied in a hollow voice. “I have earned every single curse.”
By the time Sakura reached her car she was crying hysterically as the full impact of his betrayal bore her down. She was suffocating in the hotel’s underground parking lot, barely able to breathe as she started her car and sped away. It was only when she reached the marina that she knew where she’d been headed. She would sail out around the bay and hope the sea and the sun and the waves could calm the chaos lodged in her spirit.
She spent the entire day out on the water, sending her mother a brief text after Aiko had called more than ten times. Obviously Ian or his mother had contacted her family, but Sakura had no intention of speaking to any of the Shojis—ever. By evening she was exhausted, hungry and had decided on her next course of action. She was leaving town. By morning she would be on a plane to California where she would stay with her brother until the Shoji family was back on their side of the world once more.
After making certain the boat was tied up safely at the marina, Sakura drove home and grabbed a burger at her favorite drive-through, barely eating half before she jammed it back in the bag in disgust. All she wanted was a hot bath and solitude so she could lick her wounds in private.
Which was obviously way too much to hope for.
Sakura froze in horror when she returned home to find Chiharu Shoji-Hayes sitting on the couch, holding her mother’s hands. The two women wore the same stricken expressions, and Sakura knew immediately Chiharu and Aiko had been discussing her relationship with Ian.
“Sakura.” Her mother stood and held out her arms. Sakura ignored her and turned to go upstairs. “Come and talk.”
“I don’t think so.” She took another step toward the stairs but Ian’s mother cut her off, bowing deeply before her.
“Miss Nakao, I apologize deeply for my son’s behavior. He told me of his deception and has brought great dishonor to both our families.”
“He told you?” Sakura didn’t believe he truly had the guts to tell his mother what had actually happened between them. And she certainly hoped Chiharu had not told her mother anything of the story. “Everything?”
The woman’s face flushed a beautiful shade of pink. “Ian explained to his father who passed the information on to me.” She glanced at Sakura’s mother. “Aiko, is there somewhere your daughter and I can speak in private?”
So maybe Chiharu hadn’t told her mother everything. That relieved Sakura immensely. The last thing she needed was for her parents to know what she’d done. She wondered if there was still some sort of Japanese mafia that carried out honor killings. Maybe she’d hire someone herself, she thought nastily.
But her mother bowed and left for the kitchen, leaving her alone with Mrs. Shoji-Hayes.
“Look, I really don’t want to talk about this. I appreciate your concern, but—”
“Please.” Ian’s mother took her hands and led Sakura to the couch. “I have no words to express my distress. Ian had no right to deceive you so deliberately.” She spoke perfect English with barely the trace of an accent. Perfect in every way. Sakura became even more determined to be rid of the entire family.
“I accept your apology in his behalf. Are we done now?” After her day on the ocean, Sakura felt sweaty and smelly next to the other woman, and wanted nothing more than to get away and cry herself to sleep.
“I have also come to present Ian’s offer of marriage.”
Sakura snorted, reveling in the ugly sound. “You must think I’m stupider than I look if you really believe I have any desire to marry your son…even to salvage my honor,” she added just to make sure she’d covered all the bases.
“Ian does not offer out of honor. He offers because—”
“I offer because I am an idiot and would do anything to regain your trust and respect.”
Sakura jerked to her feet as Ian strolled calmly into the room, followed by her father and another man she assumed was Ian’s dad. The bastard had gotten the entire family involved. She would never forgive him for that. “Not a fucking chance,” she stated, uncaring that she offended anyone with the curse.
Now her mother chimed in on the situation. “Daughter, we understand there have been some…indelicate…situations between you and your Bakushi.” How in the hell did her mother actually know that word?“But there is no shame in doing as he demands. Every woman who accepts her role as keisei is bound to her master’s will.”
“Keisei?” Sakura frowned. “That just means beautiful, not whatever you’re implying.”
“It also means concubine,” Chiharu answered. “Woman of pleasure. A pleasure both of us have known for many years.” She reached out for Aiko’s hand and the two women clasped their fingers together. “Which is why we hoped the two of you would make a very good match. And we hoped that despite your independent p
ersonality, you might also come to enjoy a life of submission and pleasure with your husband.”
Sakura looked from her mother to her father to Ian’s mother to the taller man who stood silently behind them. The world had turned completely upside down. “Are you telling me you have all done this for years? Seriously?” The images that ran through her mind were enough to make her stomach churn. This was way too much information. She couldn’t process any of it now.
On emotional overload she ran up the stairs and locked herself in the bathroom. Her mother and her father? Ian’s parents? They had planned this all along? And Ian had even been in on the secret. Her stomach lurched again as she turned on the water, but she swallowed down the bile and got undressed, slipping into the bath with a groan before she passed out on the floor.
She soaked for nearly an hour, finally able to relax when no one knocked on the door or interrupted. When her skin had wrinkled nicely, she dried off and combed her hair, leaving it hanging soaking wet down her back as she shuffled to her room—only to feel as if she’d been sucker-punched when she saw Ian sitting on the edge of her bed.
“Sit, keisei,” he ordered, standing to circle behind her and lock the door before she could escape. “We will talk.”
“I don’t have a damn thing to say to you.” She crossed her arms over her chest and huddled in a corner as far away from him as she could.
“Then you will listen.” Despite her attempt at distance, he calmly walked across the room and took her elbow, forcing her to sit on the bed beside him. “I know you are angry and I know you think you hate me—and I will allow you those emotions for a very short time. But you will marry me and we will be very happy together.”
She let out a manic giggle. “You can’t make me. This is not the Dark Ages.”
“Do you not enjoy the way I make you feel? The way you scream in pleasure in my arms?” He reached out to take a strand of her hair, rubbing the wet mass along his cheek, making her want him to take her in his arms.
“I need more than that,” she argued, the seduction in his voice making her tremble as it always did.
“I have given you more than that.” He sighed and stroked her hair once more. “You have seen both sides of me. I have offered you all of myself, and if you had not shown up today so unexpectedly I would have confessed and explained everything.”
“So why did you deceive me in the first place?” Sakura still wasn’t nearly ready to forgive, but she had decided not to hire an assassin.
“You needed to have a choice. To like me or not, both as Bakushi and as Ian. And I needed to see your true personality when you were not bound in submission. I have no desire to boss you around all the time.” He gave her a tired smile. “I like you when you are impertinent and inquisitive.”
“And Ty? What was that about? Why did you want him to practice on me?”
“The same reason you accepted. He needed to know he could still give a woman pleasure. He has suffered much, and I wanted to offer my assistance.”
“You should have asked me first.”
His spine stiffened and he ground his teeth together. “As your Bakushi it is my right to offer you to anyone I choose. But I will agree to let you make the final decision if the situation ever comes up again.”
“What about love? Do you love me…will you ever love me?” She still wasn’t ready to give herself over to a man and a lifestyle that didn’t include love. It wasn’t in her nature to settle for second best, and this was too important to make any kind of compromise.
He finally managed a half-formed smile. “I cannot imagine my life without you, my beautiful gift of cherry blossoms. If this is love, then I am so new to the emotion I don’t truly understand the sentiment. But I will honor you with all my heart and body and soul if you consent to be my wife. Come, keisei, and let me hold you. I have wanted to do this for a very long time.”
With a sigh of contentment, Sakura flung herself into his arms and he hugged her so hard against his chest she thought they would melt together into one…until she heard him sigh in dissatisfaction.
“What now?” she demanded, pulling back to glare at his scowl.
“Your hair, keisei. I really do need to brush it into submission.”
Sakura laughed and jumped to fetch the brush, kneeling at his feet while he tamed the soggy mess. Then he ordered her to take off her robe and threw her on the bed. But this time there was no rope in sight as he made her scream and beg him for more, and he held her close as she fell asleep in his arms, his heart now beating in perfect sync with hers.
About Gia Dawn
Gia Dawn has loved reading romance since she was a girl. She started with Harlequins in her early teens—sneaking them into church because the sermons were so long, much to the chagrin of her grandmother. She decided to write her first book after she graduated from college—which, of course, never made it past chapter three.
Then she discovered erotic romance and a whole new world of writing opened up. She has several titles already published, and is thrilled to be bringing new works to Ellora’s Cave!
Her big brush with fame is that she graduated from college with Woody Harrelson, and one day wants to write a book he could actually star in—although it will probably have to be titled “Fifty Shades Greyest” by then.
Gia welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Gia Dawn
Red Masks 1:A Taste of Winter
Red Masks 2: Master of Silk
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Binding Cherry Blossoms
ISBN 9781419948718
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Binding Cherry Blossoms Copyright © 2015 Gia Dawn
Edited by Susan Edwards
Cover design by Erin Dameron-Hill
Photography by George Tsartsianidis, Annnmei, Blank01
Electronic book publication April 2015
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