The night didn't end when the sun rose.
It just changed its disguise.
The air was heavy—thick with smoke, sweat, and the slow decay of pleasure. The scent clung to the curtains, to my hair, to my skin. I could still feel him everywhere, but it wasn't Renji my mind conjured when I closed my eyes. It was Hiroshima. Always him. The ghost that ruined sleep, turned desire into a sickness, and left my body trembling for the wrong name.
My muscles refused to relax, every nerve wound tight around that phantom. Renji's touch still marked me—hot, deliberate—but it wasn't enough to quiet the ache. It wasn't even close.
He was watching me again.
Always watching.
Every nerve end in my body screamed, alive and desperate, but my mind was a treacherous landscape, focused solely on the shadow that twisted every memory: Hiroshima.
Even now, in the raw, aching aftermath of Renji's claim, the phantom of the other man lingered, turning every gasp and tremor into a forbidden, addictive pain. I hated the craving, the profound disloyalty—and yet, I needed the intensity it brought.
Renji observed me from the periphery of the dawn light, his eyes dark, dangerous, and unsettlingly knowledgeable. He read my turmoil like a scroll already committed to memory. His movements were slow, deliberate—predatory yet laced with a careful restraint that was its own form of torment. It made me shiver, my body instinctively tightening, arching, an utterly humiliating, reflexive betrayal.
"You're still vibrating, Kaoru," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that promised both danger and amusement..yet my body was screaming : my body burning! I need his body but I can't! Atleast you save me!
I tried to force a semblance of rigidity into my posture. "I'm perfectly composed," I shot back, though the frantic heaving of my chest and the jumpy pulse in my throat were loud refutations.
He smirked, a slow, dark curving of his lips, and stepped closer. His fingers traced a feather-light path across my skin, a searing caress along the curve of my shoulder and the elegant line of my collarbone. A profound tremor ran through me—a sickening cocktail of desire, sharp frustration, and shame. I despised how readily my flesh abandoned my will.
"I'll make you mine, without a single thread of doubt," he whispered, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, igniting sparks that trailed down my spine. "Even if it takes a hundred nights of this relentless fire. That truth never dies, Kaoru, and I am that truth."
He was right. The intensity hadn't faded. My intellect screamed in protest, recoiling from the layer of Hiroshima's memory that coated every touch. But my body, the traitor, remembered only the essential heat. Every nerve, every coil of desperate warmth, every arching muscle screamed his name—or the name of the ghost his presence evoked.
I couldn't stop the mental overlay. Hiroshima's hands, the weight of his body, the rhythm of his touch—it all superimposed itself onto Renji's every movement. The present kiss, the trailing brush of his fingertip, the insistent tug, felt magnified, desperate, as if I were being claimed by two rival ghosts fighting for possession of my spirit. My pulse vaulted; shame coiled deep within my stomach—but it was intertwined with a raw, burning, inescapable need.
Renji knew. He always knew. "Patience, little flame… or perhaps you simply enjoy being exquisitely burned." His voice was a seductive drone. "Torturing you with this delicious need is far more rewarding." His fingers drifted lower, tracing the hollow of my waist, brushing the delicate line of my hipbone. "You are insatiable, Kaoru. Always demanding more. Your skin feels like a heated pan, and that is precisely where I intend to cook."
I choked out a soft, frustrated sound, fire and desperation spiraling. My body arched again, involuntarily shivering at his casual touch, at the precision of his verbal teasing. I hated the depth of my desire for him. Hated that every sharp intake of breath, every tiny twitch of muscle, revealed the severity of my burning.
Renji's grin darkened, taking on a purely possessive cast. "You want me again," he stated, his voice thick with certainty. "Even when your mind is elsewhere, calculating the risks of the past. You cannot fight this current. You never manage to."
He spoke the terrifying truth. I couldn't fight. I wanted to feel the weight of him, the heat of him, the demanding press of his body, even as my thoughts flickered to Hiroshima, even as an ache for something else gnawed at my periphery. My hands instinctively clawed at the velvet folds of the bedding, nails digging into the soft fabric, a desperate, futile attempt to anchor myself—to resist—but the effort failed.
His lips found mine, starting soft, coaxing, and profoundly teasing, then escalating to a firm, insistent, claiming pressure. My body responded immediately, hips rising, chest heaving, a fierce, spiraling heat beginning in my core. Every kiss, every stroke, every whisper was a dual sensation: fire and ice, scorching desire and necessary torment.
His hands were no longer teasing; they were demanding. They slid down my torso, beneath the fabric, finding the sensitive, aching curve of my waist. He lifted me slightly, tilting my hips just so, a movement designed to eliminate distance, to remind me of the intimacy we'd just shared—and were about to repeat. He pinned me to the velvet with the sheer pressure of his desire. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, a feverish, needy response that shocked me with its abandon.
"You feel this… this connection is almost too much for you, isn't it?" Renji murmured, brushing the damp strands of hair from my forehead with a startling tenderness. His eyes, fixed on mine, held a complex mix of anger, bitterness, and utter dedication. "Even when your heart insists it belongs to a memory. I don't know the specifics of this ghost, but I swear, Kaoru, I am serious. I don't know what will happen when—if—I find him."
I gasped, trembling uncontrollably, trying to pull away from the terrifying intensity of that promise, but his hands were everywhere now—holding, guiding, meticulously claiming ownership. Every inch of my skin, every shiver, every broken gasp—he cataloged it all. He knew the desperate, perilous game I was trapped within, and yet, with merciless precision, he gave me exactly what my body needed: hard, dangerous, tender, relentless. I felt like the stakes in a game, Hiroshima the unreachable achievement, and Renji the brilliant, brutal player determined to win by making the rules impossible for me to follow.
His breath was hot against my ear as his fingers trailed down my inner thigh. I shivered violently, the internal conflict between the erotic fantasy and the aching reality of his touch tearing me apart. I was craving, burning, yet utterly unable to deny him. Every movement, every gasp, every desperate groan fed the fire within him, and he fed back—careful, deliberate, knowing exactly how to bring me to the edge without dissolving me completely.
"You can't sleep yet," he whispered, his voice dangerously soft, pressing his forehead against mine, his energy demanding a response. "Not until this game is unequivocally over. Not until I win."
I swallowed hard, chest heaving, eyes squeezed shut. He was right. I couldn't rest. I couldn't think. I couldn't stop burning. Every nerve, every shiver, every trembling breath reminded me that this morning was not about memory, was not about ghosts—it was about the immediate, tangible fire of him.
Renji's hands traced the line of my jaw, brushing my hair back with a sudden, aching tenderness. "You are mine. Admit it or not," he stated, his control absolute. "I can take no into yes whenever I choose. Every gasp, every shiver, every single need… it's all mine now. And I will continue to give you exactly what you need. But eventually, Kaoru… you just have to stop being available to those other bastards and belong to only me."
I let out a shuddering breath, a total, exhausted surrender. "H... how many times must I tell you—"
He cut off my protest with a desperate, crushing kiss. "Shut up. Just shut up for a while." He whispered against my mouth before deepening the kiss with a ferocious hunger that demanded everything.
The fire, the ache, the profound, unmanageable longing—it consumed me. Tender, hot, and utterly relentless. I didn't fight anymore. Not this morning.
Not until his game ended, and I became his reward.