Burn (24 page)

He sat wedged at the back of Cinder’s bathtub. His
elbows braced on the pale yellow tile at the back of the
deep tub, his biceps tensed. Beneath the billowy bubbles
floating on the surface of the deep water like whipped
d
essert topping, Gian’s legs and toes tensed in a rictus of
pleasure. The water softly buffeted Gian’s torso as Cinder,
her water-slicked backside exposed like a chocolate heart,
showed Gian exactly what she could do to him in the
three minutes she could hold her breath.

The first minute had been amusing, fun even. But fif
teen seconds into the second minute, Gian had begun
wrestling with the urge to bring her up for air and his
growing need to take the sides of her head and steer her head faster and himself deeper.

At two minutes and forty-five seconds, Cinder’s left
arm went around his waist and her right shoulder pressed
farther into his crotch. Gian’s head fell back, clunking
against the tiled wall, when Cinder did something that he
could only describe as . . . swallowing.

The warm, soft walls of her cheeks pulled in around
him, which gave him a tantalizing thrill of its own, but
then that unique snugness grew even tighter when he felt himself drawn so deep that Cinder’s nose pressed into his
lower abdomen. Gian sounded the three-minute warning with a shudder and a loud groan as Cinder’s throat gen
erated a vacuum effect that left him pounding his fists on
the tile.

At three minutes, ten seconds, Cinder rose from the
water, standing on her knees before Gian. Her chest
heaved as she took deep breaths and asked, “How long?”

“It’s a new record,” Gian grumbled before taking her
by the waist with one arm and reversing their positions.
“Three minutes, ten seconds. Wanna see how long I can
hold my breath?”

“Sure.” Cinder smiled.

Gian went under, his bigger body only partially
obscured by the water and bubbles. His hair danced in
the water, caressing her skin with feathery strokes.
Cinder’s back arched when she felt his nose open her, followed by greedy laps of his tongue that covered more and
more territory with each lick. His fingers dug into the
meat of her buttocks as he spread her wider and tilted her
upward to fully enjoy her. The scrape of his lower teeth
and the rasp of his tongue against the puckered ring
between her buttocks gave her a dizzying erotic charge.
Gian nibbled her hard, hot pearl while using two fingers
to taunt the sensitive bed of nerves inside her.

She almost screamed in frustration when Gian burst
through the surface, flinging water from his hair as he
looked at the clock. “Two minutes, eleven seconds,” he
gasped.

Cinder sat up straight and might have put him in a
chokehold if he hadn’t said, “I can’t hold my breath for
long, but there’s other things I can do for hours.”

He stood on his knees and took Cinder’s ankles. He pressed them to her buttocks and drove the rigid, heavy
weight between his legs into her. Cinder held onto his
shoulders, allowing him to control the speed and depth
of their union. Their position was perfect, giving Gian’s
mouth access to her breasts. He licked droplets of bath-
water from her nipples, then he suckled them, drawing
just hard enough to put a curl in her toes. Cinder held his
head to her bosom, her upper back and shoulders butting
into the back of the tub as Gian increased his speed, bur
r
owing deeply. Cinder tried to hold on, to outlast him as
she had under the water, but the nip of Gian’s teeth at her
right nipple forced a blissful surrender. She clamped
around him, her fingernails marking crescents in the
meat of his shoulders. She closed her eyes and happily,
eagerly, lost her mind to the universe of warm, bright
color turning over itself with each thrust of Gian’s hips.

* * *

Gian kept still.

His heart drummed faster from the effort of trying to
remember every detail of the moment he awakened in
Cinder’s bed. She lay with her back to his chest, her
hands under the left side of her head, folded as if in
prayer. Her bedroom was a study in muted shades of green, gold, and umber, her furniture sturdy and well
crafted in distressed hardwoods. Books neatly packed her
shelving units. Gian was a little surprised to see her comic
book collections. Matt Groening’s
Life is Hell
,
Calvin &
Hobbes
,
Bloom County, The Boondocks, The Far Side,
and
Peanuts
were well represented alongside romance novels
by Kitty Kincaid, Khela Halliday, and Victoria
Ronaldinho. He knew that she had to have had a sense of
humor at some point to handle being friends with Zae,
and he’d seen traces of it. Her taste in comics proved that
she had a sardonic streak that needed to be resurrected.

Paperback classics—
To Kill a Mockingbird, Being
Plumville, The Color Purple, A Separate Peace
—their
bindings creased from multiple readings, sat prominently
a
t eye level along with slim, glossy graphic design trade
manuals.

She had no photos of friends of family in her bed
room, or anywhere else in her apartment. All of her
clothes and shoes fit in her bedroom closet and one five-
drawer bureau with room to spare from what he’d seen when she’d selected a pair of white cotton briefs and a
matching slip gown to sleep in.

The only area of her apartment that seemed lived in
was her drafting table, which occupied the corner of the
bedroom that best received the northern light. Her work
area exploded with color. Her drawings and designs were
tacked to giant corkboards mounted on adjacent walls,
and they represented everything from cartoonish grocery
store and austere pharmaceutical company logos to an
ornate, Asian-style painting of a serpent dragon. That
image captivated Gian, reminding him of the silkscreens
he’d seen in dojos in Japan.

Gian stroked Cinder’s upper arm with the backs of
his fingers, marveling anew at the wonder of the woman
tucked into the hollow of his body.

“It’s early,” came Cinder’s quiet, sleep-raspy voice.
Gian kissed her exposed shoulder. “I didn’t realize you
were awake.”

“I’m a light sleeper.”

Gian lay on his back, his hands laced over his torso.
Cinder turned onto her other side to look at him.
“Something’s wrong,” she said and sighed.

“I don’t like the way you live,” he stated bluntly.
“Why not? I’m happy here.”

“
No, you aren’t. You’re in a holding pattern. You’re
waiting. The tragic part of it is that you’re waiting for
something that probably won’t ever happen.”

Cinder slipped out of bed. She opened her pale,
heavy curtains, allowing a blast of early morning sunlight
to strike Gian’s face like a laser beam. Squinting, he
sharply turned away.

“I think I know my ex-husband a great deal better
than you do,” she began evenly, leaning against the wall
between the window and her workspace. “This can go
two ways. If it’s gonna be our first fight, let’s get on with it so we can get to the make-up sex before you have to
open Sheng Li. Or, you could apologize and change the
subject. We might be able to squeeze in a nasty little
breakfast entrée between the sheets before you have to go
to work if you calm my fur enough. Pick your pleasure,
Gian.”

He saw that there was no point in further pursuing
the matter with her. She refused to see reason, at least for
the moment. A veteran of all sorts of conflict, Gian sur
rendered with his pride intact. “Cinder, I’m sorry. Tell me
about that serpent dragon on your wall.”

Her pleasant, relaxed demeanor restored, she unstuck
the clear push-pin holding the art in place. She returned
to Gian’s side, sitting cross-legged with the eleven-by-sev
enteen-inch poster propped on her knees.

“The arena is going to be so big, and Zae wanted to
make sure that her family and friends would be able to
see her when she competed in the tournament,” Cinder
started, her excitement waking her fully. “She asked me t
o design some kind of symbol that she could embroider
on her
gi
, something to represent Sheng Li. I did some
research, and I came up with this.”

Leaning against Gian, Cinder pointed out the details
she had so carefully incorporated into the design. “Green
represents health, vigor—”

“Wealth,” Gian put in.

“That, too.” Cinder smiled. “But that’s why I shad
owed some of the scales in gold. To represent longevity,
value, and wealth.”

Gian peered closer at the work. “That looks like real
gold.”

“It is. It’s only 10K, but it’s real. I ordered the paint
from a distributor in Japan. The gold detail came from a
story about the discovery of the gold Kannon.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“According to myth, two brothers discovered a gold
statue of Kannon, the goddess of mercy, when they were
fishing the Sumida River. Gold dragons flew out of the river when the discovery was made.”

“So I guess the brothers got stinkin’ rich.”

“One could suppose.” Cinder chuckled.

“This is really beautiful, Cinder. It looks like an
authentic
tatsu
.”

“I’m a good artist and a good researcher,” she stated
with pride. “One of the first things I read about dragons
is they don’t have the same stigma in the Far East that
they have in Western culture. They don’t breathe fire and
watchdog captive princesses. They’re benevolent, but powerful. They symbolize power, strength, and the bal
a
nce between might and wisdom. Buddhist traditions
view the dragon as a mythical representation of the hard
ships we have to face and overcome before we can obtain
enlightenment. I wanted to honor Sheng Li and the man
who created it. The dragon was the perfect emblem.”

“I would be so honored, so pleased, to wear this into
combat,” Gian said. He put an arm around her and drew her in close. “I want all my fighters to wear it, too. It’s
perfect.”

Cinder fastened her arms tight around his middle and
stared at the dragon. Everything it stood for was something she believed in. Gian personified the ideals behind
the emblem, and Cinder wanted to represent them, too. After a moment of introspection, she said, “I’m sorry I
struck out at you about what you said. You’re right, and
I know it. It’s just hard to hear someone say it out loud.”

Gian leaned back against the high, slatted headboard and brought Cinder to rest on his chest. “Last night was the first time you fell asleep before I did.”

“I was tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open once
we got out of the tub.”

“You’re so beautiful when you’re awake, but when you’re asleep, you look like an angel. I’ve never seen you
so relaxed.”

“I’m comfortable with you. You know that.” “Is that all?”

Beneath her cheek, Cinder was certain that his heart
beat pounded harder. “No,” she said. “I trust you. I sleep
easy with you because I trust you.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“I’m hungry,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Woman, I’ve had just about—”

“I love you.”

Gian’s heart slammed against her cheek, and she
turned her face up to his. “Is that what you wanted me to
say?”