Twice Upon a Time (18 page)

She’d much rather admire Reece than pluck strings. “Just for a moment. You would like to watch them as well, wouldn’t you?”

His dark eyes lit up with excitement. “I hope to start training with them soon.”

“You wish to be samurai?”

He nodded. “I will fight for our honorable Shogun. Do you wish to be samurai?” Lara took a step backward, thrown off-guard by his question. “Women cannot be samurai,” she said automatically.

“There are very few,” he admitted.

Lara hadn’t known that there were
any
female samurai, but then she hadn’t known there were any female ninja either. She wasn’t quite sure what the difference between the two types of warriors was. Was it merely social class? Fighting style? Rituals?

Bushido? Whatever the heck that was…

“Can we go watch the samurai train?” she asked again.

“For a few moments, but then we must meet with Aika.” Lara nodded in agreement and offered him a friendly smile. She was surprised when he blushed and lowered his gaze. Did someone have a little crush on Hana? Or maybe he knew that she’d gotten off hard with her supposed greatest enemy the night before. They traversed the dirt path that led around the inside of the inner courtyard.

Multiple traditional Japanese houses framed the glorious garden. There was something very comforting about the design. Lara took a deep breath, the tension of her body draining away. The path eventually took them between two houses to a sweeping vista in the foothills of the mountains.

Hojo grabbed Lara’s wrist and tugged her down behind a large boulder. “They can’t know we are watching. Kojiro will be furious that I did not take you to Aika as soon as you awoke.”

Lara silently cursed her kimono as she settled on her knees beside Hojo, hoping she was concealed by the rock because once she got down, it would take a forklift to get her back up and she was pretty sure they hadn’t been invented yet.

“We’l just tel him that I slept in late,” she said.

He smiled and turned his attention to the fourteen warriors going through drills in perfect synchrony. They used wooden swords as they practiced. It soon became apparent as to why they didn’t use their razor-sharp
katanas
when they trained. They held nothing back when they paired off and fought each other. Kojiro was the fiercest of the batch and, much to Lara’s disappointment, he was firmly in command of himself at the moment, which meant Reece was concealed from her eager gaze. So when Hana decided to take charge of her own body, Lara didn’t resist. She had no interest in watching fourteen strangers train. She’d only wanted to watch Reece—the man she loved.

Hana watched the warriors train with keen interest. She absorbed the technique behind their motions like a sponge, imagining how her body would feel as she lifted the sword this way, thrust it that, slashed like so. She wasn’t even aware that she’d been mimicking their motions until Hojo grabbed her sleeve.

“Stop or they’ll notice us,” he whispered.

Off-balance she tumbled sideways, wishing she was in her peasant-garb as Kojiro had so rudely cal ed it. It sure made maneuvering a lot easier than this contraption.

When she lifted her shoulders out of the dirt, she noticed a familiar pair of feet in her line of sight.

“What are you doing here, Hana?” Kojiro asked in his deepest, most commanding voice. “You are supposed to be learning how to be a woman this morning.” Hana struggled to stand, remembering the way it had felt to be subservient to Kojiro the night before. How freeing it had been. How pleasurable. She would not be that woman in front of al these men, however. When Kojiro reached down to help her rise, she lashed out at him. He scowled and set her on her feet, before releasing her arm as if she harbored an incurable disease. She didn’t have time to analyze why his brusqueness made her heart pang. She was too angered by his existence to care.

“I do not wish to be a woman,” she spat at him. “I wish to be a warrior.”

“You want to be samurai?” Kojiro asked.

The group of men laughed. Hana straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “I am ninja.”

“Mercenary,” one of the samurai sneered at her.

It was true that many of her comrades hired out their skil s for a fee, but Hana only fought to protect her people. She didn’t fault those who were mercenaries however. It was not easy to survive in these war-torn times. Her brother had been killed during a hired mission. She had wanted to go with him, but he’d left her behind to protect the village. She might have saved him—from
Kojiro
—had she been there. Or if the band had been better prepared to fight these warriors. Maybe if she pretended she wanted to be one of them, she could learn their secrets and share them with her clan.

“But I would like to become samurai,” she said.

Kojiro’s eyes widened. “You would?”

“Yes. Fighting is a far more useful skill than playing koto or pouring tea.” The samurai laughed again, not
at
her this time, but with her.

“Let’s see what your little demon flower has in her,” one of the samurai said. “I say let her fight.”

“Hojo,” Kojiro said and flicked his hand toward the boulder.

Hojo slowly rose to his feet, head bent in shame for failing to complete his task.

“Yes, Kojiro-dono?”

“You will be Hana’s partner today.”

Hojo’s head lifted and he scarcely hid his wide smile before nodding curtly. “Yes, Kojiro-dono.”

“I prefer to partner with you,” Hana said, meeting Kojiro’s gaze.

“I thought she partnered with you last night,” one of the samurai said and laughed with his comrades.

Hana’s face flamed. They
knew
? Hana narrowed her eyes at Kojiro. What had he told them? How she’d opened herself to him? How she’d accepted him into her mouth and swallowed his come? How she’d come herself just because he’d demanded it of her? How she’d begged for him to possess her? How she’d enjoyed every minute?

“She will partner with me this morning as well,” he said, looking entirely nonplussed by their lewd comments.

The instant a wooden sword was in her hands, she advanced on Kojiro, striking at him with every ounce of strength she possessed. He blocked her strikes but did not counter them. Hana struck harder, cursing her stupid kimono. If there hadn’t been fifteen men in attendance, she would have shed the blasted garment.

“Don’t take it easy on me because I’m a woman,” she shouted, striking again, countered again.

“I’m not taking it easy on you because you’re a woman,” he said, watching her motions closely and lifting his wooden sword to block every move. He surprised her by grabbing her sword with one hand and jerking her toward him. He caught her against his chest and lowered his head to whisper in her ear, “I’m taking it easy on you because I love you.”

Love?
What could this murderer possibly know about love? She shoved him, took several steps back, and hiked her kimono up her thighs so she could maneuver better.

This elicited plenty of appreciative comments from their attentive audience, but Hana didn’t care. She wanted to kil Kojiro for daring to use a word such as love in her presence. A strange lust, yes, she understood and claimed that feeling for the handsome warrior, but not love. Never love.

“Don’t take it easy on me at all!” she shouted angrily, hacking at him with imprecise retaliating blows.

He blocked several strikes and then lifted his sword to strike back. Her hands went numb from the hard vibration that carried down her wooden sword. He struck again and the sword tumbled from her useless hands.

“You are swift, Hana, but there is no strength in your blows,” he said calmly.

She scrambled for her sword, flexing her fingers around the hilt as she faced him again.

They sparred until Hana could no longer lift her fatigued arms. She was pleased to see that Kojiro had the decency to break out in a sweat.

“She has potential,” one of the samurai said.

Kojiro nodded, but did not take his piercing gaze from Hana’s. “Leave us.” Hana held her sword at her waist, her lungs laboring for breath. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to be left alone with Kojiro, but she didn’t have the strength to follow the others from the practice field.

“Do you feel better?” he asked, still holding his defensive stance as if he realized she would attack him the instant he dropped his guard.

“About what?”

“Things best forgotten.” When she did nothing but stare at him, he continued, “I did not kil your brother out of spite, but in defense. Do
you
know why the ninja attacked us that night? As far as we know, it was unprovoked. We have been trying to make sense of it.”

The tip of Hana’s sword lowered despite her best efforts to keep it elevated. “What do you mean? They were protecting a village from the likes of you and your Shogun’s greed.”

“I will not deny that the lower class always suffers to fund the wealthy, but we do not attack villages. Occasionally we must infringe upon their hospitality to remind them who protects them from the battling states, but we never attack.”

“You lie,” she said.

“That night three weeks ago, mercenaries attacked the castle. None of our enemies has claimed the attack. We know of no reason anyone would seek retribution. If you know something about the reason behind that attack, speak, Hana. The Shogun has lost his patience with your clan of peasant warriors. If he orders his samurai to annihilate you al , I am honor bound to abide by his wishes.”

“That is all you care about,” she said. “Honor.”

“I live and die by bushido’s creed, but that is not all I care about, Hana.” He dropped his guard, but she did not attack. She blamed it on her fatigue, but knew she was lying to herself. She did not want to injure Kojiro. She did not want him to die. She wanted to understand him. And she wished she could continue to blame him for killing her brother, but in her heart, she knew she would have done the same to protect her people as Kojiro had done to protect his.

“What do you care about, Samurai?” she asked. “Besides honor.”

“My Shogun. My family. My warriors. The mountains and the river. The sky and the rain. My birds. My sword.” He turned and glanced at her. “And you.” Hana’s breath caught and her wooden sword tumbled from her slack grip.

“What do you care about, my flower?” he asked.

She thought of her brother, so strong and proud. He was gone and had left behind a gaping hole in her heart. “Nothing,” she said, her vision swimming with tears. “I have lost the only thing that I ever cared about.”

When his hand brushed her hair, she did not flinch away. She leaned into his touch, craving his strength because she had none. “You care,” he whispered, drawing her along his solid length. “You care because I demand it of you.” Her head snapped up in defiance and he captured her face between his hands. His lips claimed hers with the passion he’d introduced her to the night before and she was instantly enslaved by this man’s kiss. After several blissful moments of her surrender, his mouth released hers and he stared down into her eyes.

“You care about the people of your village,” he said forceful y.

She nodded, her heart swelling in her throat.

“You care about a bountiful catch and a plentiful harvest.” Those things meant survival to her people, so she had to nod in agreement again.

“You care about me.”

She opened her mouth to deny it, but he kissed her again and she went limp in his arms. His hand cupped her aching breast and she moaned in his mouth. Did she care about him? She wasn’t sure, but she did love the things he did to her body. His free hand moved to the swell of her bottom and he pressed her lower belly against the hardening length of his cock. Oh, she wanted him. She could not deny that at al . She rubbed against him and instantly found herself straddling his lap on the ground.

“Join with me, Hana,” he said, fumbling with his clothes and hers.

Hidden beneath a tangle of loosened kimonos Hana sank down upon his engorged cock. His eyelids fluttered and he leaned against the boulder at his back, his fingers pressing into the flesh of her hips beneath her clothes. She rode him slowly, lost in his gaze, realizing that when they were joined like this, power and honor did not matter. Al that mattered at that moment was the two of them lost in mutual surrender. A few moments later al that mattered was the pleasure shared between their straining bodies.

In the aftermath, he held her against his chest, his body still buried within hers.

“I do love you my little demon flower,” he whispered.

She almost believed him. Something substantial was stirring within her own tattered heart as well.

Reece’s arms tightened around Lara, drawing her closer to his weary body. He was in great physical condition, but the drills of the morning had been intense. A bit perturbed that Kojiro had decided to give Reece’s consciousness the upper hand only after he’d sated his lust, his hands began to wander freely over Lara’s soft curves.

“I just don’t get these two,” Lara murmured. “One minute they’re fighting and spewing hatred, the next they’re making love and spouting mushy sentiments.”

“It keeps things exciting,” Reece said.

Lara chuckled. “That’s for sure. I think I’d like to stick to learning to play the koto and how to pour tea. Hana can continue with the sword fights on her own.”

“What about the love making?”

“Do I get a choice on that one?” Lara murmured, her lips brushing the sensitive skin of Reece’s neck. Her hands found their way into his gaping kimono and explored the contours of his chest. “With you, it’s my favorite pastime.”

“Kojiro-dono,” someone shouted about ten feet from where Reece and Lara were fused together in an intimate embrace.

“Shh,” Reece whispered in Lara’s ear. “Maybe they won’t find us here.”

“Kojiro, there is a large group of peasants at the gates. They are demanding you release Hana from her imprisonment.”

“So I’m your prisoner?” Lara whispered.

“I do hold the key to your heart and I refuse to set it free.” Lara leaned back and rolled her eyes at him. “Very sappy, Reece. I suppose we have to go see to this situation before it gets out hand.”