Page 63 of Kotori

Paige

I step from the shrine room into the moonlit corridor, still carrying the weight of my vow to Akira, and make my way toward the gardens. The September air is warm against my skin, but I need space to think.

I find him waiting in the center of the stone garden, a dark figure among the carefully raked gravel.

The full moon casts everything in stark black and white.

His face half in shadow, his eyes reflecting starlight.

He's dressed for war: expensive black suit that can't quite disguise the bulletproof vest beneath.

Even from a distance, I can read the tension in his shoulders, the controlled stillness of a predator preparing for battle.

"You've been waiting," I say.

"I needed to see you." His voice carries roughness I've never heard before, raw and desperate. "Before I go."

"Go where?"

"Outside the city. Hiroshi sent formal challenge through the senior advisors an hour ago." His jaw tightens. "Traditional combat. Winner takes clan leadership."

"Then I'm coming with you."

"No." The word cuts through moonlight like a blade. "This is single combat. Ancient law. I go alone or forfeit everything."

The reality hits me then. The heaviness in his posture, the way he's looking at me like he's memorizing every detail.

"A formal challenge means?"

"One of us dies tonight." His honesty is brutal. "Hiroshi's been planning this for years. He's chosen the time, the place, the terms. He wouldn't call for single combat unless he was certain he could win."

My chest constricts with rage and terror. "Then don't go. Let him be the coward who hides behind ancient law."

"I can't. Refusing formal challenge means forfeiting clan leadership. Every family under our protection becomes vulnerable. Our daughters lose everything." His voice drops. "And Hiroshi knows I won't let that happen."

Our girls. Even facing possible death, he claims them. Claims me.

"So this is goodbye?"

Something breaks in his expression. The first crack in that perfect control. "Paige." My name comes out broken. "What we built, what you became, I never expected—"

"Stop." I close the distance between us, my hand finding his chest over his heart, feeling the hard edge of kevlar beneath expensive silk. "Don't you dare make this a speech."

He stares down at me, and I see it. Fear. Not of dying, but of losing this. Of losing us. "You changed everything," he says quietly, voice rough with something I've never heard before. "Made me want things I thought were weakness."

"It matters," I say fiercely. "You matter. This family matters."

"And I love who I became with you," I continue, the words pouring out desperate and true.

"The mother who discovered she'd kill to protect her children.

The woman who found her strength in choosing to fight.

I love you, Kaito. All of you. The darkness, the violence, the way you'd burn the world down to keep us safe. "

We stand there in moonlit honesty, no more games or manipulation. Just two people who've found something worth dying for.

He steps toward me, hands framing my face with trembling fingers. "My fierce queen."

Then his mouth is on mine.

The kiss ignites something feral. I bite his lower lip, tasting copper and desperation. My fingers tear at his jacket, needing to feel him, to memorize every detail before he walks into hell.

"No." I step back and tear at my clothes, letting it pool at my feet. The September air is warm against my naked skin but I'm burning. "If this is goodbye, then I'm taking everything."

He sucks in a breath, wonder taking over his face. I stand completely bare while he remains fully clothed. Powerful, armored, the yakuza king in his battle dress. "Paige."

"No words." I reach for his tie but he catches my wrists. "Not tonight."

"I don't undress for war," he says quietly, voice rough with want and something darker. "But you, kuso, look what you do to me."

He pulls me against him, and the contrast sends electricity through every nerve.

Naked skin against expensive fabric, soft curves pressed to hard armor.

I can feel his weapons through the wool—the gun holstered at his ribs, the knife at his back, the bulletproof vest warm from his body heat.

Reminders of the violence waiting beyond these walls, the man who kills to protect what's his.

"This is what I need," I whisper, desperate to memorize everything. The sharp line of his jaw, the way his eyes go dark with want, the controlled strength in hands that will soon spill blood. "To remember you like this. Coming back to me."

"I will." His mouth crashes against mine, swallowing doubt. When we break apart, his forehead presses against mine. "I have too much to live for now." His hands shake as they map my body, reverent and desperate, like he's trying to burn the memory into his palms.

"Tsuyoi onna," he growls against my throat. Strong woman. "My beautiful."

He enters me with one brutal thrust that tears a scream from my throat. Stone scrapes my back but I don't care, can't think past the way he fills me completely, stretches me, claims me with savage desperation. "Ore no mono," he rasps, buried deep and pulsing inside me. Mine. "Always mine."

"Prove it," I gasp, nails raking down his back through expensive fabric, feeling the hard outline of the knife sheath beneath wool and kevlar. The holstered gun digs into my ribs as he moves, a reminder that this beautiful, deadly man is going to war. "Fuck me like you're never coming back."

The rhythm turns feral. He pounds into me against ancient stone, each thrust driving me higher up the sculpture, deeper onto his cock. I'm nothing but sensation. His hands bruising my hips, his teeth marking my throat, the delicious pain of being split open and claimed completely.

"Harder," I demand, biting his ear until he groans. "Break me. Ruin me. Make me yours."

He slams into me so hard the sculpture shakes, his control finally snapping. One hand tangles in my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat. The other finds my clit, circling with brutal precision while he fucks me like he's trying to brand his ownership into my very soul.

"Is this what you want?" he snarls against my neck, his voice dropping to guttural Japanese. "Konna ni nureteiru no ka? Bōryoku ni nurete iru daraku na onna?" Are you this wet? A depraved woman getting wet from violence? "To be fucked like the desperate little slut who chose darkness?"

"Yes," I sob, the word torn from somewhere primal as pleasure builds like wildfire. "Yes, use me, mark me, make me remember."

"Ore no mono da," he growls, fingers working my clit with brutal precision. "Zettai ni ore no mono da." You're mine. Absolutely mine. "Say it."

"Yours," I gasp, barely able to form words as he drives me toward the edge. "Always yours!"

My orgasm hits like lightning, ripping through me so violently I nearly black out. I scream his name into the September night, clenching around him with spasms that drag his own release from him in a broken roar.

He comes buried deep inside me, his seed flooding my womb while he curses in Japanese against my throat. "Kuso, kimochi yokatta—" Fuck, that felt good. His body shudders with the force of his climax.

We don't separate afterward. Can't. I cling to him, naked and shaking, while he holds me against cold stone.

"If something happens." I start.

"When I come back," he corrects, voice hard with determination.

"And I will come back. This family is mine, and no one takes what belongs to me.

" But his hands are too gentle as he helps me back into my clothes, movements careful like he's memorizing the feel of silk sliding over my skin.

When he straightens his tie and checks his weapons, I see something in his eyes that terrifies me.

Not doubt. Grim certainty.

"Protect them," he says simply. "Be the mother they need."

"Kaito." His name stops him at the garden's edge. "I can't lose you. Not when I've finally found who I'm supposed to be."

He turns, and for just a moment, moonlight catches his face. Not the controlled oyabun, but the man who loves his daughters and chose to love me back. "You won't lose me," he says with absolute conviction. "I have too much to live for."

Then he's gone, swallowed by shadows and duty, leaving me alone with the taste of what might be our last kiss burning on my lips.

I stand in September's warm air for a long moment before walking back toward the house where three girls sleep peacefully, trusting that the adults in their lives will keep them safe.

Whatever happens tonight, I'll be ready.