Chapter 6

The air in the private tea house was thick, heavy with the scent of blooming cherry blossoms and the damp, earthy humidity of the Japanese garden beyond the shoji screens. Outside, the night was alive with the muffled hum of the festival, distant laughter and the clink of sake glasses drifting through the paper, but in here, the world had shrunk down to the space between us. I was perched on the low cushion, my silk kimono loosened at the waist, the fabric pooling around my hips like spilled moonlight. He sat across from me, his posture relaxed but commanding, that familiar, predatory stillness radiating off him in waves. We had been talking for an hour, just talking, letting the conversation meander like the stream in the garden, but the tension had been coiling tighter and tighter, a spring wound to its breaking point. He reached out, his hand large and warm, covering my knee. His thumb brushed the inside of my thigh, a slow, deliberate stroke that made my breath hitch. "You’re trembling, baby girl," he murmured, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate right through the floorboards and into my bones. I looked up at him,