The Stepsister Who Followed Me Through the Shrine Gate novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Red Cord

Hinata tied the knot twice, because the first one wasn't good enough.

The red cord of her hakama went around Mai's crossed wrists, over and under, and then up to the carved bedpost above the pillow.

Mai lay on the white sheets with her arms stretched over her head, bare to the lantern light.

She could not have said when she had last been so nervous.

"Too tight?" Hinata asked.

"No."

"You can say if it is."

"It isn't. Keep going."

Hinata knelt over her in nothing but a loose white under-robe, with her chestnut hair falling around both of them.

She was flushed and bright-eyed and entirely in charge.

It had been three days since the bath.

Three days of dawn prayers, temple clerks and one long silent dinner in the Hall of the Gate.

Every night Hinata had curled up against Mai's side and said, patiently, "Soon. I'm planning something."

Tonight the Saint had pushed the door shut with her foot and said, "Yet."

"I'm going to look at you for a while," Hinata said.

"Hinata..."

"Don't move. You can't. Isn't that nice?"

Mai tugged once at the cord.

It held.

Heat flooded her face and chest and ran straight down between her thighs, and Hinata saw it and smiled.

"Onee-san is blushing."

"Don't call me that."

"Why? You like it."

"I don't..." Mai bit her lip.

Hinata bent and kissed her very gently, and then pulled back an inch.

"You do," she said. "Stepsister. Onee-san. We've got no blood in common at all, and I get to say it, and it makes you wet."

Mai groaned.

"There," Hinata whispered. "That's the sound."

She sat back on her heels, and slowly, button by button, undid the front of Mai's night shirt.

The cloth fell open.

Hinata ran her palms over Mai's ribs, her flat belly, the small tight breasts, and Mai arched into the touch and strained at the cord.

"Beautiful," Hinata said. "Look at you. You never let anyone see this."

"I never let anyone."

"And now I get it all. Good girl."

Mai whimpered.

Hinata took a nipple between her lips and sucked, hard, with a little scrape of her teeth.

Mai cried out, and her hips left the bed.

"Hinata, please..."

"Please what?"

"Touch me."

"I am touching you."

"Lower."

"Say it properly, Onee-san."

"Touch my pussy." Mai's voice shook. "Please."

"Good."

Hinata slid down the bed.

She worked the night shirt off Mai's shoulders with a few careful tugs, because of the cord.

Then she took the waistband of Mai's underwear in both hands and drew it down inch by inch.

Mai lay naked and tied with her knees falling open.

The lantern light slid over her, and she shut her eyes.

"Look at me," Hinata said.

Mai opened them.

Hinata was kneeling between her legs, looking up at her with something fierce in her eyes, and she did not touch her.

"You hold everything together," Hinata said. "All day. For everyone. You never get to put it down."

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