Bound by Tradition (4 page)

“Pure adrenaline.”

“Not excitement, not fear?”

“Aren’t they one and the same?”

“I suppose. Was your heart racing before you faced my sister?”

I thought about that a minute, before shaking my head. “No, it wasn’t. I underestimated her…big mistake.”

“This morning, in the parking lot, did you underestimate me?” He shifted from squatting to kneeling in the dirt beside me.

“I don’t understand.”

“Yes, you do.”

I cringed, not wanting to admit that I’d sized him up and determined him unworthy, not because he wasn’t sexy, because my God, sexy doesn’t even begin to describe the man kneeling in the sand next to me. I shrugged—difficult with my hands tied behind my back, but possible. “I thought you were gay.”

“So, I look like a guy that prefers men over women?”

I frowned. “Stereotypical assumption—great body, long hair, toe ring.”

He laughed.

I bobbled my head. “Sorry?”

He shrugged. “You just admitted I have a great body.”

“I’m not going to deny the obvious.” My muscles started to tense. I was definitely feeling the forced posture in places I didn’t want to ache, considering I had another competition in a few hours. “You know, this was fun. A real experience. But you can let me go now.”

“Not yet.” He chuckled at my expression and leaned forward. He brushed my lip with his fingertips. It was such an intimate gesture, making things low in my pelvis tense. His lips followed his fingers in a trail of soft kisses.

I wanted more, pressing back, encouraging a firmer kiss. Shiro didn’t take the bait. He kept things soft, teasing. His tongue slid along my bottom lip. I couldn’t remember ever being kissed with such teasing tenderness.

My back arched needily…just from the worth of a kiss.

He pulled away, leaving my lips hungry for more. He sat back, still kneeling, and just looked at me. I imagined the sight, my barely covered breasts jutting between the ropes, my back arched, my ankles tied to my wrists. I dropped my face, wisps of stray hair loosed from my ponytail hiding at least some of the… God, what was I feeling? Fear? Shame? No. Extremely horny? Yes.

His hands rubbed over my shoulders. “Hurting?”

I closed my eyes, having to have the moment of darkness to ask myself that question. My shoulders burned from the tension, as did my thighs, my ankles, my chest, but no pain, not yet. “Is that your plan? Incapacitate me so I can’t fight your sister?”

“I just want you to feel
alive
again.” His hands smoothed over my arms, running a sensual path to my hands. He caressed my fingertips, stroking each one, making me gasp as his mouth again followed his fingers with kisses and soft licks.

I bucked in the rope, the fabric pulling roughly against my skin, only adding to the want, desire for what I couldn’t have. I needed my hands free to force him to follow through with what his lips were promising. I did not want to think about what he’d said, because it was true. I wasn’t living. I was going through the motions of life, but none of it held any meaning. “Untie me.”

“Soon,” he said against my shoulder. He drew his fingers in soft swirls over my legs in a path that traveled down my calves and over my thighs to draw attention to every inch of exposed skin. I tensed as the caress moved closer to my cotton-clad twat. “I want to touch you.”

I knew exactly where he was talking about.

“Yes,” I said. “Please. Untie me. Touch me. Fuck me.”

He pressed his cheek next to mine. “Just a touch.”

My heart leaped into my throat, knowing he meant exactly that. He didn’t have to pull out heavy-duty weapons; he was going to kill me with unquenched need. I whispered, “Please don’t tease.”

“Such impatience for a martial artist.”

I panted, our gazes locking again as his lips teased my cheek. His hand was warm as it slid beneath the elastic leg band of my panties to touch my bare hip. My pussy clenched as his fingers drew closer and closer. His breath was warm on my face, and it seemed suddenly to be a distraction, too much sensation. Everything was too much…the desert colors brighter, the blue sky blinding. A hawk’s shrill cry high above seemed like a painful scream on the soft breeze.

It seemed like forever as he traced my curves, forever before his fingers reached my aching labia.
Just a touch
. He drew away.

“No no no. Touch me!”

His lips were next to my ear. “I did touch you.”

“Not enough.”

“Enough to smell of you.” He lifted his fingers to my nose, and I smelled a heavy muskiness on his fingertips.

I dropped my face, embarrassed. I still wanted to be fucked, but I wouldn’t beg. He walked away and left me tied. It was probably only minutes. It seemed like hours. Long enough for the aching between my legs to drive me insane with want. Long enough for the brilliant colors and too-bright sky to blind me. The colors swam together. The screaming bird above my head seemed to rip something in my heart. Why did she sound so filled with agony?

That sound touched me more than all the rest of it. She was me. I was her…

He untied me, and I hadn’t even realized he was undoing the knots. Suddenly I was stretched out, facedown in the dirt.
Free
. And sobbing.

“I’ll give you a minute to pull yourself together,” he said softly.

I lay in the dirt, shaking, not understanding what happened.

Chapter Three

For a girl headed back to an arena to face her last chance at gold-medaling, my head was in the wrong place. Beside me, Shiro was silent, and I wondered what he was thinking but was afraid to ask.
What was his motive for the drive into the desert? Why did he tie me up? Did I completely blow it by crying like a baby? That is so not me.

I focused on the desert, the passing cacti and scrub, the small birds.

A purple haze was settling over the landscape, which made all the shadows longer, darker. Night was falling. We were away a long time. It seemed like no time at all.

I sighed heavily for the tenth time.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Really?”

“What am I supposed to say? I’m dreading facing my father? He’s not a tyrant. He’s not mean. But I’ve disappointed him. He’s going to be mad. I’m just not ready to face that. And I still have kumite to face.” Kumite was the fighting aspect of the competition and would be the most tiring. My muscles were already burning. I wasn’t sure I was up to several competitive matches.

“Is that why you cried in the desert? Because you disappointed your father?”

I shook my head. How could I explain why I was crying when I had no idea myself. “Tell me you still want to take me to dinner and a movie.”

“Of course I do. Where and when?”

“Now. Take me away from all this.”

“Not a chance. I like living, and your father would hunt me down and kill me if you missed a competition because of me.”

I’m done. Tired
. “I feel like a machine. I don’t love it anymore.”

“Have you tried telling him that?”

“How many times? How many different ways?” I looked toward him, but he didn’t look back. He seemed so different from the way he’d been on the trip into the desert when he couldn’t take his eyes off me. “Why does it seem like you’re so distant now? Was this the plan all along? Since this morning? Fuck with Stephanie Ricci’s head so she’ll be worthless in the ring?”

“No!” He gasped and met my gaze. “Don’t think that; please don’t think that!”

“Then what?” I shrieked. “Because that was pretty intense back there, and I’m really not sure what to think…about any of it… Not about what happened, or me now, or you now…or us…now.”

Shiro pulled off to the side of the road and threw the gear into park. He took my hand, but I still couldn’t meet his gaze He stroked my face, then pulled my chin to make me look up. When I finally did, I saw worry knitting his brow. “We have a dinner and movie date, not tonight, but soon, tomorrow, the next day, you tell me, but right now I really need to get you back to the city. That is the most important thing. You need to compete, and it’s my fault we lost track of time.”

He started to pull back into traffic, but I stalled his actions by covering his hand on the gearshift with mine. “Kiss me.”

“I can’t, not yet.” He pushed both hands through his hair.

“What does that mean?”

“If I kiss you, I might not take you back. Do you even realize how miserable you look? This morning it wasn’t my problem, but now…I want to see you happy and smiling. The minute you go back there…”

I nod.
Trust me, I know
. “Okay. Then after. Late dinner, late movie. Tonight.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry for crying back there.”

“Bondage brings out trapped emotions.” He pulled out into traffic. “It happens.”

I wanted to hear that what happened back there was some kind of magical, mystical connection between the two of us, but by his answer and tone, I guessed, “Just a normal rope day for you?”

“What happened back there”—he met my gaze—“I wish you could have felt my side of the experience, the energy exchanged between us. It was pretty spectacular.”

What he said didn’t make sense, but I didn’t argue. The coliseum was in sight. Taking a deep breath, I went over it in my mind again, how the world swirled in a kaleidoscope of color, my brain went to mush…and I broke down.

Shiro parked, and we were close enough to see my father pacing in front of the entrance. “If I survive my father, I’m holding you to dinner.”

“I should have dropped you at the door.”

“No,” I said. “I have plenty of time, an hour until the final match. Just stay here until we are inside.”

He gave me a look. “I don’t hide.”

“You won’t be hiding. I just want one of us to be alive for the sunrise.”

He pushed my chin to look toward my father. “Our parents have ended their two decades of silence.”

He was right. The two men were obviously talking. I released a shuddered breath. “Wish me luck.” I kissed him quickly before sliding out of the car. Shutting the door, I heard two slams, my door and his. “I thought you were going to wait.”

“No way. I’m no coward.”

I hurried to get inside, walking right past my father and Gichin Miura, although my father gave me a look that said we were going to have a long talk when we were finally alone. I was glad when it appeared the two men were still speaking in civil tones. It was more than I could have asked for. I was pulling open the heavy outer door when I heard my father shouting. Looking over my shoulder, I saw he’d cornered Shiro.

“Trying to distract my daughter so your sister can win?”

Both Shiro and his dad looked at my father like he had lost his mind…and maybe he had. He’d always been a hothead. I rushed back to face the trio, shouting, “Dad, stop! Please. Suki is good. She won her matches fair and square. Shiro had nothing to do with that.”

“You defend him? What happened on that ride?”

I shook my head, mad enough to spit nails. At least I hoped the men blamed my flush on anger and not guilt. “Please come inside. I have to compete.”

I was glad when Shiro and his father took my distraction as an opportunity to walk away. I knew the exact moment the heavy doors opened behind me…and closed again. My father was bristling. I was bristling. We made a pair.
Damn
. Our scenes were legendary at competitions. I’d never thought about it before, but I didn’t want to be seen like that. Seen to be just like him.

A quick glance around confirmed we had an audience. Embarrassed, I walked away without another word.

A few minutes later Shiro and Suki found me sitting in the stands. I was completely covered up: hoodie, dark sunglasses, earbuds in with music blaring. She sat beside me. He squatted in the row in front of me and pushed up my sunglasses to see my eyes. He didn’t comment that they were red and puffy, which earned him extra bonus points. He asked, “Can we join you?”

I sat up a little straighter, pulled the earbuds from my ears, and adjusted the volume. The crowd noise startled me; so many voices talking at once after the cleanness of pure music was jarring. Since I was sitting in our team section, filled with competitors and parents, more than one eyebrow rose. “Sure. It is enemy territory though, so I’m not sure I can guarantee your safety.”

Shiro laughed as he sat down on the bench in front of me. “Enemy, is it?”

Looking from him to her, their similarities were striking and unsettling. Height, weight, shared facial features. It was so obvious they were twins. The one distinction that set them apart was her overbleached short and spiked hairstyle and his long, dark brown hair. Their worst shared trait, at least on first glance, was that they both seemed terminally happy. How could anyone be filled with so much joy he bubbled over with it?

Suki brushed my arm and asked, “Didn’t you hear last call for staging?”

“I heard.”

“You’re not going?” she asked softly. “Because of your fight with your father?”

I stewed on that a moment before replying. “Not completely about him. I’m just not enjoying this anymore.
Once
, I did.
Once
, I competed for fun, but lately it has been about winning, getting the free advertising, lining up sponsors. And today I accepted that it isn’t my dream; it’s his dream. I knew that before. I just never put much thought into it.”

“You’re not quitting because you took silver? Because the going got tough?”

“What?” I gasped. “No! Is that what you think?”

Suki shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s what your fans will think.”

I stood up, hands in fists. Shiro chuckled softly, and I realized I’d been played. “So if I lose and don’t come back to another tournament ever, you believe everyone will think I am a sore loser?”

She shrugged, but her eyes told me that was exactly what she thought.

“Damn it. There is no out then. Ever.”

“Technically, if you compete in Nationals next year and take all gold, no one could say anything.” Shiro offered his opinion gently. “If you still feel like retiring, you could announce your decision on a high note.”