The Stepsister Who Followed Me Through the Shrine Gate novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Wedding Night

The bolt slid home, and the whole noise of the city shut out behind the door.

Mai had one second to take a breath before Hinata's mouth was on hers.

They had run through the temple garden in their wedding robes, hand in hand, laughing, with petals in their hair.

Now Hinata pushed her back against the wood and kissed her.

"Wife," Hinata said into her mouth.

"Yes."

"My wife."

"Hinata, I can't breathe."

"Good. Don't."

Mai laughed, wild, and kissed her harder.

Hinata's hands were already at the white collar of Mai's robe.

She worked the knots loose with quick sure fingers.

She pushed the heavy silk off Mai's shoulders, and it fell to the stone floor in a soft heap.

Mai stood in her thin under-slip, with her glasses crooked and her mouth swollen.

"I'm twenty-six," she said, stupidly, "and I think I'm going to faint."

"You're not allowed. You have a wedding night to get through."

Hinata took her by both hands and walked her to the bed.

The sheets had been changed.

Someone, probably Odile, had scattered dried barley flowers across the white linen, and the room smelled of cedar and honey and a little of smoke.

"Sit," Hinata said.

Mai sat on the edge of the mattress.

Hinata stepped back, and began to undress herself.

She did it slowly, as Mai had done it for her days ago, one layer at a time.

She unwound the gold sash and let it trail from her fingers.

She slipped the heavy outer coat from her shoulders, and the crimson, and the white, down to the thin silk slip.

Then she lifted that over her head too, and stood naked in the lamplight.

Her chestnut hair fell around her breasts, and her soft belly rose and fell with each breath.

Mai could not speak.

She had seen her naked a hundred times, in a bath, in a mirror, in the dark, and every time was the first.

"Look at me," Hinata said.

"I'm looking."

"I'm yours. I'm your wife. Say it back."

"You're my wife."

The word went through them both.

Hinata smiled, and her dimples came out, and she knelt on the bed with the gold sash in her hand.

"Give me your wrists."

Mai held them out.

Hinata wound the gold silk twice around them, loose and soft, and knotted it.

She stretched Mai's arms up above her head and looped the free end around the carved bedpost.

It was not tight.

Mai could have pulled free with a tug.

She did not.

"This time you're choosing it," Hinata murmured, kissing her. "Aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Say it."

"I'm choosing it. Please."

"Good girl."

Mai's whole body went hot and loose.

Hinata drew the slip up her body, slowly, over her thighs and hips and ribs, and bunched it under her bound arms, and bared her.

She stayed there on her knees for a moment, simply looking.

"You're so beautiful," she said. "You are the most beautiful thing in this whole world."

"Hinata..."

"I'm going to take my time with you. All night."

"Please."

Hinata kissed her.

She kissed her mouth, and her jaw, and the long line of her neck.

Then she took one small breast in her mouth and sucked gently while her thumb circled the other.

Mai arched against the silk.

"Good," Hinata whispered, against her skin. "So good. You taste like honey. You taste like home."

She worked down, slowly, kissing each rib, the flat of Mai's stomach, the sharp curve of her hip.

She put her mouth to the inside of Mai's thigh and bit, and Mai's hips jerked.

Then she parted her with two thumbs, and looked, and breathed on her.

"There you are," she said. "My wife."

The first long lick made Mai cry out.

Hinata licked her slowly, patiently, with the flat of her tongue, from the wet opening up to the clit and around it, light and teasing.

She did it again and again.

She sucked the clit gently into her mouth and flicked it.

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