Page 132 of GlitchBorn Heart

His tongue brushes my nipple, warm and wet. “I will never hurt you to prove my power over you.” His chest meets mine, the slight sheen of sweat causing us to slide over each other. “I’ll ruin you with pleasure because you let me. Because you know I’ll never let anyone else touch what’s mine to protect.”

The word mine sends waves of euphoria rippling inside me.

“And if you ever fall,” he finishes, forehead resting against mine, “it will be into my arms. Always.”

Only Kael could make restraint feel like freedom. “Kael, kiss me.” I’m one step away from begging. I want to taste the passion on his lips.

He doesn’t. Instead, his lips part, tongue barely visible, teasing me, inches away. He tugs the rope across my breasts, friction rubbing both my hardened peaks.

“Every knot I tie, every loop I pull, it only works because you trust me to hold you and let you go.”

My pulse stumbles. He’s right. I could pull away from him at any time. I could resist. But I don’t. The thought terrifies me more than the rope around my throat.

I nod, completely immersed in the moment. I have no words for the choice I’m about to make. Hell, I’m so breathless, I’m not sure I can even form words right now.

I think about the masks above us, about how I’ve always loved the mystery of hiding myself away. Yet here I am. Tied up and completely exposed to him, and somehow as evil as this city portrays him to be, I don’t feel weaker.

He makes me feel stronger.

“Every knot is trust,” Kael says, looping the rope at my throat over his tattooed fingers, pulling it tight again. “And you’re giving it to me willingly. That makes you more vulnerable than you know, Taiyō. Because the moment you trust me fully is the moment I’ll never let you go.”

He finally gives me what I want as our lips crash, the kind of kiss that makes time stop. Our bodies completely still, only our mouths moving feverishly.

Intimacy with my enemy.

He was right. I should run to him, not away from him.

I don’t want to run anymore.

He’s testing how much of me will yield to him before I break. I’ve already decided he can have it all.

“Every knot is also a promise.” His lips slide to my earlobe. A whisper for only me to hear. “I promise to never take what you don’t give.”

A whimper escapes me. I surrender with a loosening of my entire body against his. Of course, he notices.

He steps around the back of me, pressing his hard length against my ass. The knots shift. He’s drawing my arms closer to him, my back arching, his breath tickling the side of my neck. The contact is light but maddening. I want more.

“I know you feel that.” He pushes his cock harder against me, beginning to move to pleasure himself. “Tell me what you want, Taiyō.” He’s coaxing me to reveal my deepest, darkest desires to him again. “What mask do you want me to wear when I take you for the first time? When I have you underneath me, and I’m inside you about to ravage you? Or do you want none at all? Just me, laid bare before you, no hiding?”

His hand brushes the side of my jaw, not rough, just enough to make me shiver. I want that day to come soon. “You...in the kitsune mask,” I admit, breath shaky. “Just like the RedRoom.”

“Good. And? What about right now? Do you yield to me?” His breath is hot on my skin, sending tiny currents of electric humming to my core. “Or are you still scared of me?”

The knot around my chest pulls when I inhale, binding me to him in ways that have nothing to do with rope. “I’m not afraid of you anymore, Anomaly Hunter.”

He leans in even closer, his voice a dark ribbon wrapping around my skin, caressing it. “That’s my girl. Smart and intuitive.” The way he compliments me, soft but unyielding, makes my breath stutter.

I nod without meaning to, and he smiles against my temple. I can feel him pressing himself against me again. “I want you to really concentrate on all of this,” he whispers. “Not just the rope. Me. My patience. My control. I want you to know you’re always safe with me. I want you to learn how strong you can be when you let someone else hold the rope.”

He crosses to the wall and takes down a sword, not just any sword, but the katana from the RedRoom. Its polished steel gleams even in the low light. I see myself reflected in the edges as he steps back in front of me.

I’m pretty sure I can’t be harmed in my holo-form, but still, for some reason, I feel no fear. I close my eyes. In the dark, behind my lids, I see the mask, the crimson glow of the RedRoom, and lose myself there. This is really happening between us. Just like DreamNet.

He tilts my chin up with two fingers. “Watashi o mite—look at me, Little Taiyō.”

I focus in on eyes so dark, they’re just pools of shadow that swallow the light whole. They don’t just look at me, they consume me. A thousand things unsaid flicker in them: hunger, restraint, but especially the arrogance of a man who masters everything in his reach. I’m no different.

His smile sharpens, predator and protector combining as one. “This isn’t about fear. It’s about trust. About you choosing me. You making the decision that from now on you will trust me fully. No doubts. No uncertainty.”