Page 13 of The Dragon 2 (Tokyo Empire #2)

Chapter ten

A Trap for a Tiger

Kenji

How does one catch a tiger?

I stood before the full-length mirror framed in gold.

My reflection stared back—collar open, sleeves unfastened, the final touches of my tuxedo waiting for my attendants to arrive.

The Scarlet Suite at Maison du Sang —the House of Blood—was a place for sinners who preferred silence with a view. It sat at the crown of the 8th arrondissement, in a hotel only spoken behind velvet gloves and cigar smoke.

From the outside, Maison du Sang looked like a dormant palace.

But inside?

Inside, it pulsed with the kind of wealth that demanded worship.

My suite was soaked in sexual history. Crimson velvet walls gleamed under the Baccarat chandeliers.

They say King Léon IV brought his mistress here during the winter of 1726.

She was a Black courtesan from Martinique, draped in pearls and scandal.

The king had declared the space his ‘private chapel.’

And it was here where he worshiped her.

That courtesan had screamed with pleasure in this suite. She had moaned against the glass, her bare brown skin fogging the window as the king took her from behind with a moonlit Paris as their witness.

She had cried out his name with each thrust.

Did she moan Léon ?

Or was it, King ?

We would never know what she screamed.

What she begged for.

What she surrendered.

But what history does remember is that the King moaned a lot over his mistress.

There were multiple written accounts—scandalous notations tucked in the back of the hotel’s housekeeping journals and letters penned by startled maids.

The king groaned her name over and over during his visits here, so loudly that staff recorded it like weather.

In the past year, there had been a whole protest in Paris among citizens to allow these items to be on public display, but the French government would not obey. Even now, they did their best to erase the courtesan from history. No one even knew her name anymore.

To this day, most of those entries remained in the basement archives of the Royal Textile Museum, filed under “miscellaneous domestic anecdotes.”

Apparently, there was an infamous entry from the Queen’s own lady-in-waiting, the morning she caught King Léon napping in the garden chapel, hand on his chest, mumbling the courtesan’s name in his sleep over and over.

The French are an interesting bunch, but now I finally understand the King more than I am comfortable with.

I put my view on the right and spoke to Goro across the room. "Play it again."

“Yes, sir.” Goro lifted the iPad without a word and tapped the screen.

The footage began.

A modest Tokyo apartment showed. White walls, clean lines, a faint shadow of the city skyline filtered through the rice paper window.

Everything so, unworthy of my Tiger.

Nyomi and Zo sat cross-legged on the futon—that pathetic, narrow piece of furniture that folded like origami and offended me every time I imagined her sleeping on it.

She deserved seven condos with seven beds—one draped in crushed violet velvet, another slick with black silk. One carved low into cool marble, another warmed by underfloor embers. A bed for dreaming. One for surrender. Another for when she was being worshipped by me.

She would never be bored with where she slept.

How do I get her off of that fucking futon?

On the footage, the morning light spilled, touching the white lacquered table beside them where a tray held steamed lobster tails resting on ceramic, their shells cracked just enough to expose the flesh.

A carafe of rare yuzu mimosa fizzed beside a chilled bottle of Cristal.

Across the tray sat bowls of kaiseki-style tamago, shaved bonito over rice, and miso broth poured from a silver teapot.

I’d commissioned the breakfast with intent.

For her decadence and absolute indulgence.

But it wasn’t the food I’d been watching.

It was her.

The footage had come from a small camera tucked inside a vase filled with roses. My chef’s assistant had brought it over with the breakfast, under the guise as another one of my gifts.

There was a tiny lens disguised by the petals.

I’d instructed the assistant to place it just off to the side so I could watch the breakfast unfold.

The plan had been flawless.

Until her damn friend moved it.

Zo without the fucking e.

I frowned.

After the last dish was cleared, the idiot took the vase along with my secret camera and brought it into the bedroom like it was some casual centerpiece.

Now?

Apparently, so full of champagne and lobster, he’d called off from work. Therefore, all the footage showed for the rest of the day was him, sprawled out, oblivious, humming some stupid song as he scrolled through his phone.

No Tiger.

No sunlight.

Just the wrong person in the center of my screen.

My jaw ticked.

At least I have this earlier moment to continue to replay over and over.

On the screen, Nyomi leaned back, laughing at some joke he’d made. She had her head tilted. Those tiny, long curls bounced.

Zo sat beside her—too close, leaning over his bowl, flicking rice at her with chopsticks like he had the right to be that familiar.

Then he grinned and raised his hand.

She didn’t hesitate.

She slapped it.

Loud.

Joyful.

A high-five full of ease.

My jaw flexed.

I didn’t like anyone touching her. Not even like that. Not even with laughter.

Then, she laughed some more.

I smiled. “Pause it.”

Goro tapped the screen.

The image froze.

Her smile lingered—lips parted, lashes lowered, cheeks glowing from champagne, sunlight, and laughter.

How does one catch a Tiger?

This was the sixth time I’d watched the footage. And still, I didn’t have the answer to that question.

I stared at the screen as if it might whisper a strategy.

A secret.

A spell.

It gave me nothing.

Just her laughter.

I let out a long breath. “You’re dismissed, Goro.”

The man lowered the screen, bowed, and turned to leave.

I watched him go. “Hold on to the iPad. Don’t take it too far. I may want to see it again.”

“Yes, sir.” Goro left.

I thought back to the hotel card I’d given her.

Top floor. Private elevator. Rose-silk sheets and dragon motifs etched in gold.

A view of Tokyo Bay stretched beneath the floor-to-ceiling windows— Skytree etched like a blade in the haze, the Rainbow Bridge glowing in arcs of light, and the Sumida River glinting below.

Why didn’t my plan work?

I hadn’t chosen the suite just for her comfort. It had been my little, clever prison-palace disguised as a gift. The suite was to be my window, so I could see her whenever I wanted. So I could know when she opened the curtains, when she stepped onto the balcony, when she breathed.

But the men outside that suite said she hadn’t entered.

Not once the entire day.

I didn’t understand it.

Would she ever go? How do I lure her there?

I stood in silence for a long time after Goro left and looked around the room as if somewhere in this space there would be an answer.

A lacquered chair of blackened cypress sat near the window, where my silk robe waited, untouched. Folded like a blade.

What will I do about my naughty Tiger?

It was night in Paris, but Tokyo had now seen a new morning where she’d woken up on that damn futon again.

I can’t believe she didn’t take the suite.

The card remained untouched. The bed unslept in. The luxury curtains unopened.

It wasn’t the rejection that unsettled me, it was the indifference.

She was supposed to be curious by the suite. Drawn in. Lured by velvet, the view, and the silent pull of something decadent waiting for her just beyond the threshold.

Instead, she chose that fucking beat-up futon.

I paced.

How does one catch a Tiger? Perhaps. . .I don’t hunt her. I tempt her. I. . .entice her. I. . .build a maze so exquisite she walks in on her own, smiling, not even knowing what it truly is.

I paused from pacing.

But how the fuck do I do that? Do I use her need to finish that book? Why is no answer coming to me?

In the past, the women I’d known had all taken the card without hesitation. They’d gasped at the gold foil, the suite name embossed in calligraphy, the hidden dragon seal burned into the corner like a mark of fate.

They understood what it meant.

They knew I was the Dragon.

They recognized my power.

They bowed to it in their own way—eager hands, flushed cheeks, doors left unlocked. Pussies wet and waiting for me to enter and fuck them until their soft, intimate walls were wet and drenched in my cum.

They wanted to be devoured.

They begged to be claimed.

But this American woman. . .my naughty Tiger. . .

She hadn’t taken the card.

She hadn’t bowed to my power.

But. . .at least she hadn’t run from it either.

I shook my head.

Tora. . .the more you make this difficult, the more your pussy will ache once I fuck you.

I should’ve felt fury, but instead, I felt something far more dangerous—admiration.

She was the first woman I couldn’t predict.

Tora.

I gazed out the window. Beyond the glass, Paris glittered in its own evening decadence. A thousand lights winked across rooftops. As usual, the city was trying to seduce the stars and it was winning.

But I didn’t care about the skyline.

I thought about the safe embedded behind the abstract oil painting on the far-left wall keeping my Tiger’s panties secure.

How is it. . .that she was supposed to be trapped by me today, but I am the one that is trapped? How did she so easily cage me while I was trying to cage her?

I thought back to those panties.

I never trusted FedEx with such an important mission.

I only trusted my obsession because that never disappointed me.

Therefore, the panties had arrived by private courier just before sunset, nestled in a black satin pouch inside a Decadent bag. Ziploc bags were airtight, efficient, and reliable. If sealed properly, they trapped everything—scent, heat, memory, lust.

A woman’s arousal didn’t fade easily.

It beautifully fermented.

Erotically evolved.

Deepened.

But only if handled correctly.

Preservation was an art.

Her panties had been worn less than an hour before departure. Still wet when she slid them off. Still warm from the dream she’d had of me. Still soaked from the ache between her thighs.

My courier knew better than to mishandle a relic so important to me.

Hand-carry only.

No pressure cargo.

No exposure to dry cabin air.

No fucking temperature shifts.

Nothing that would disturb the molecules of her scent on the panties or the delicate fingerprint of her pussy’s heat.

The black satin interior of the Decadent bag had been pre-warmed to the exact degree where desire lingered, and shame evaporated. The insulation was custom—engineered to maintain precise humidity.

I’d received integrity updates from the courier on the panties every two hours.

Logged.

Timestamped.

Coded with detail.

No drop in heat.

No wrinkle in the content.

By the time they arrived in Paris, the sky had burned gold and bruised violet.

I pulled them out of the bag like a madman. The wet center pressed into my palm like a brand. Still damp. Still glistening. Still holding onto the moment she thought of me and surrendered.

With the damp panties in my hand, I didn’t move at first. I just stared and let the silence stretch. Let the ache settle between my ribs like a second pulse.

The room didn’t breathe.

Neither did I.

Then and only then did I exhale and lift the panties to my nose.

The scent shot through me like a drug.

It wasn’t a gentle high. It was narcotic violence—a throbbing possession that hit my bloodstream before my lungs.

Before thought.

Before breath.

My cock jerked, thick and impatient beneath my slacks.

My throat closed… the hunger so sudden it made me dizzy.

My heart kicked, brutal and aching in its need to own her very soul.

I gripped the carved edge of the bedframe to keep from sinking into the plush carpet like a man drowning.

Her wetness wasn’t just perfume. It was the echo of her thighs one day opening for me, of her fingers spreading those wet pussy lips while moaning my name.

Black-amber.

Ripe plum.

Warm cotton soaked in sin.

I was ashamed to say this but thank God no one was around when I opened my mouth and put those panties between my lips.

I sucked on the white panties.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

I let the wetness seep onto my tongue.

The salt of her.

The sweetness.

The surrender.

Obsession had a taste and it was her pussy’s slickness.

Ecstasy.

Agony.

Consummation.

I groaned low and the ruined sound dragged through my teeth.

I unzipped my slacks, let my cock free. It was already hard, already leaking, already aching like it had waited lifetimes for this moment.

I took those panties out of my mouth and then slid the wet cotton across the swollen pierced head of my cock.

Let the fabric kiss the precum.

Let it bless the shaft.

Let it wrap around my cock like a vow.

I smelled her again while stroking myself slowly with the cloth.

Not just to cum.

But to remember and mark her scent on my body.

It hadn’t been masturbation .

It was ritual.

Still jacking my cock, I put those panties back into my mouth—wet with her and my precum—that was when I orgasmed, whispering her name.

Shooting cum in the air.

My moans soaked the cotton.

Her name spilled from my throat in fragments, muffled by the panties in my mouth.

Nyomi. Nyomi. My Nyomi.

Each syllable was a chokehold.

She hadn’t taken the suite but she had taken something far more dangerous from me—my fucking control.

How does one catch a Tiger?

Back in the current moment again, the question pulsed, low and sharp, as I stared into the darkness beyond the mirror’s reflection.

In my mind, I saw it.

A dragon.

Massive. Golden-scaled. Eyes burning like twin suns; wings furled tight in restraint. It crouched in the shadows, coiled with hunger, smoke threading from its jaws.

And across from it. . .a Tiger.

Striped gold and sable, she lay in a patch of moonlight, unbothered. Unmoved. Licking her paw with slow grace.

She didn’t run.

She didn’t growl.

She knew the dragon could burn her alive.

She also knew he wouldn’t.

Because he wanted her too fucking much.

So, the Tiger stretched, rolled to her side, and blinked at him with feminine knowing.

Oh.

That was when the answer struck me—not like a strategy but a sentence seared into the back of my skull.

How does one trap a Tiger? Perhaps. . .the Dragon must beg. . .