Grounded (Up in the Air, #3)(92)

I moaned and arched. He gripped my hair roughly, pulling my head back as he rammed into me hard. He set a jarring, brutal pace, such a stark contrast to our genteel surroundings, and I loved it just as much as he knew I would.

He had all of the smooth moves in the world but he used none of them, rutting into me with a harsh, single-minded purpose. I’d thought he’d taken me every way there was, but the way he took me then was so savagely violent, feeding both my need for pleasure and pain, that I came around him with a ragged sob, feeling punished and pleasured in equal parts.

My knees were sore by the time he found his own release, pulling hard on my hair as he reached the end of me with a rough grind of his hips. “Oh, Bianca,” he moaned, and there was a world of praise in his voice, as though only I could undo him like that, and I closed my eyes with pure pleasure at the thought.

He folded himself against my back, giving his name on my back, and then my neck, a hard kiss. “So f*cking perfect,” he told me, still twitching inside of me. “Every inch of you was sent to me from heaven.”

I smiled at the thought. It still caught me off guard sometimes, how whimsical and romantic he could be, especially after what we’d just done. “Only you could make rutting on the floor like animals into something romantic,” I told him with a laugh.

He pulled out me with the most delicious little noise. “And why shouldn’t it be? What isn’t romantic about finding a few perfect moments of bliss with the woman I love?”

I couldn’t come up with one thing.

We walked through the rest of the gardens leisurely, holding hands and sharing lingering touches and tender looks. His gaze was particularly warm when he looked at my pink knees. He loved to leave his mark on me.





We checked out the Tsukiji Fish Market in the morning, and we sampled some of the best sushi in the world there with an early lunch. We spent the entire afternoon at the famous Ueno Park and Zoo, enjoying people-watching and sightseeing.

Over the next few days, we visited every shrine, temple, museum, and worthwhile sight in the city. Clark or Blake would snap pictures of us in front of all of the famous landmarks. I thought we must have taken at least a thousand pictures within the first five days of the trip.

We shopped for hours in the huge discount mall set up around the Senso-ji Temple, and ate various forms of street food. I tried it all gamely, but I would sometimes catch James clenching his fists when he saw me trying something.

“What?” I asked with a laugh. He’d been scowling while I’d tried a bite of a fried octopus ball.

“If you get ill from eating that, I’m going to go wring that street vendor’s neck.”

I wasn’t surprised. The man was never able to completely rein in his protective streak.

James seduced me in the Koishikawa Korakuen Gardens one morning, in a small shrine, in a private little glade. I was sure that Clark or Blake must have been standing by to guard against intruders, because he took his time on me there, bits of the sun bathing us through the leafy trees guarding our little slice of paradise.

We devoted an entire Sunday to Harajuku Street and the Meiji Shrine, since they were vast, but within walking distance of each other.

I tried not to be rude, but I couldn’t help but watch as one of the intricate wedding processions moved through the Meiji Shrine.

James wrapped himself around my back. I watched for a long time, fascinated by the lovely spectacle of it. I glanced at James when we moved on. I’d been expecting him to make a few cracks about weddings, but he’d been unusually silent through it all.

“That was beautiful,” I told him.

He just nodded, pursing his lips and looking down at our joined hands.

Harajuku Street was everything I’d imagined and more. I stopped and watched every time one of the Harajuku girls passed by, sometimes in packs, dressed like lollis, and gothic lollis, and some in full-on cosplay. I always got excited when I recognized the anime that they were imitating. James found this adorable, telling me so with his most indulgent smile.

I found us some matching T-shirts in an anime-themed shop. They were mock versions of school uniforms from an anime I liked. One was black, one white. I held them up and was startled when James shrugged out of his own shirt. I was as good as ogling his smooth golden chest as he pulled the white anime shirt on. It was tight as a glove.

I used a dressing room to change into my black version of the same shirt. The shop girl was giving James very wide eyes as he paid, and I couldn’t blame her. He had just given her quite the show. James baring that much skin was a mouthwatering display, no matter the reason.

I thought it was so sweet that he was willing to indulge me by wearing the shirt for the rest of the day. The material was soft and thin, and I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off his chest in it as we walked the crowded street. He didn’t mind.

We spent an evening in Akihabara, the Electric City, even wandering into one of the famous maid cafés. There were cute Japanese girls that looked too young to be working serving us food, and kittens wandering the café, one even jumping onto our table to be petted. It was charming, but would have been more so if not for the older men that seemed to be there to ogle the way too young girls.

James was a big hit with the girls, of course. The maid that served us couldn’t even look at him without blushing, and several asked to take pictures with him before we left, though there was a sign in English clearly stating that it cost forty-seven hundred yen to get pictures with them.