I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 743: Ayame Curious (2)

”I think I will take a warm bath while we talk.”

Nathan said nothing as she reached up and loosened the kimono from her shoulders, letting the fabric slide down her arms in one smooth motion before it pooled silently onto the floor. She stepped out of it without a second glance, walking to the edge of the water. There was no performance in it, no coyness, just a natural ease that made the whole thing feel almost ordinary, which somehow made it harder to ignore.

He watched her step into the water. The water was deep and wide in the pond. Steam rose from it in thick, rolling waves that drifted upward and spread lazily through the air, catching the light in a way that made the whole room feel softer, warmer, like the inside of a dream you weren’t quite sure you were having. The mist did its work well enough, blurring the water’s surface into something hazy and indistinct. But it wasn’t generous enough to hide everything. As Ayame waded in deeper, the full and generous swell of her breasts pressed against the rising steam, unmistakable in their size and shape even through the thick white veil of it, before she lowered herself smoothly beneath the surface until the water reached her collarbone and the fog settled around her like a curtain drawn just in time.

She moved through the water without urgency, her arms drifting out slightly at her sides for balance as she made her way toward him. Nathan was leaning against one of the large flat rocks that bordered the far side near the waterfall, his arms folded loosely, watching her approach with an expression that gave nothing away. The steam had begun to dampen the air around him too, soft and warm against his skin.

Ayame stopped a comfortable distance away and let the stillness stretch for a moment before she spoke.

”A perfect temperature,” she said, her voice light and pleased, as though she were simply remarking on the weather.

”You wanted to talk about something.” Nathan’s tone was even, cutting through the warmth of the place without effort. It wasn’t quite a question.

She looked at him with that same unhurried expression she seemed to carry everywhere.

”I did,” she said. ”I wanted to thank you properly, first of all, for coming to my rescue against Morosuke.”

”I did it for my own goals.”

”I know,” Ayame replied, and there was no defensiveness in it, no flicker of disappointment. She said it the way someone confirms something they already knew before being told. ”That doesn’t change the fact that you saved my life.”

”Hanzo saved your life,” Nathan said.

She tilted her head slightly, a small movement, the kind that meant she was weighing something before she responded. ”Morosuke was the enemy and you defeated him. You freed Minato entirely, and because of that the city is moving toward something far brighter than it has seen in years. All of that traces back to what you did that day.” She paused, watching him. ”Everyone in Minato has your name on their lips, you know.”

”I’ve heard,” Nathan said. ”They’re misunderstanding things.”

”Far from it.” Ayame drifted a small step closer, her voice staying calm and even. ”They may not know your real intentions, that’s true enough. But they know exactly what you did, and they know what it meant for them. That kind of gratitude doesn’t ask for your permission to exist.” She let that settle for a moment before continuing. ”Morosuke’s men scattered from Minato and not one of them has dared to so much as think about filling his seat. Your name alone keeps that silence in place. Whether you intended it or not, you are a shadow over that city, and it is protecting people.”

”As I said,” Nathan replied, ”none of that was what I was after.”

”It doesn’t matter,” Ayame said simply.

Nathan shifted slightly against the rock, his eyes settling on her with a quiet firmness. ”I hope you aren’t sitting here building foolish ideas about me.” There was nothing cruel in the way he said it, but the warning underneath it was clear all the same. ”Everything I do, everything I am doing right now, I am doing for my own sake. Not for Minato, not for anyone else.”

Ayame was quiet for just a beat, and then she laughed. She began closing the remaining distance between them slowly, the water stirring in gentle ripples around her as she moved, the steam shifting with her like it was following her lead.

”Be reassured,” she said, her voice dropping just slightly as she drew closer, eyes meeting his without wavering. ”I don’t doubt a single word of it.”

”Is that what you came for? Finding out my real intentions?”

She smiled at the question the way someone smiles when they’ve been given an easy opening. ”I still haven’t found your real intentions nor your real identity, so I am still in the dark about my mysterious savior.”

”Maybe there’s no need for you to know more than necessary.”

”Maybe,” she said, ”I wish to know more about you.”

She closed the last of the distance as she said it, the water shifting around her, and her fingers found his arm just below the surface — tracing there, light and deliberate, a touch designed to feel accidental and succeeding at neither. He glanced at her. She held his gaze without flinching, which told him something.

”And why would you wish to know more about me?”

Her smile shifted. Something warmer in it. More honest, maybe, or more calculated — with Ayame he suspected those were the same thing. ”You killed Yorimasa and Morosuke,” she said quietly. ”Men who made my life very difficult and took many of my women from me. And then you saved my life. Does that really need asking, Ryo?”

He said nothing.

She took that as permission.

Her hand slipped beneath the water without ceremony and Nathan felt her fingers close around him.

The touch was warm even against the heat of the spring.

”God,” Ayame said softly, her eyes not leaving his face. ”This is really big.”

”Careful,” he said. Warning in it. An invitation to reconsider.

She didn’t reconsider. Her hand wrapped around him — or tried to, her fingers falling short of meeting, his cock too thick to fully circle — and she felt him there, heavy and not yet fully hard, and her lips curved like she’d won something.

”I am being careful,” she murmured. Her thumb traced up the underside of him, slow and exploratory. ”And there is no better timing — the silver-haired girl who follows you everywhere isn’t here today.” She began to stroke him, long and easy, feeling him thicken against her palm. ”With her nearby I can never approach you. But today—” her voice dropped to something close and warm against his ear, ”—today I can even touch you here.”

Yukihime’s absence hung in the air between them like a door left open. They both knew it. Ayame had clearly been watching, waiting, calculating the geometry of Yukihime’s movements until she found a gap large enough to step through. Nathan filed that away.

”You’ve been thinking about this for a long time,” he said.

”A long time,” she confirmed, no hesitation. Her strokes grew slower, deeper, her grip tightening fractionally as he hardened fully in her hand. ”And after you came for me at Minato—” she shifted closer through the water, the current eddying warm between them, ”—I decided. I want to give myself to you.” Her lips found his cheek, pressed there soft and deliberate. ”I want to feel you closer. Inside me.” Another stroke, root to tip, unhurried and thorough. ”I want you to fuck me the way you fuck Yukihime every night.”

Then she kissed him.

Full and certain, no hesitation in it, her free hand rising from the water to find his jaw.

Nathan’s arm moved.

He caught her at the small of her back and pulled — one clean motion — and Ayame gasped into his mouth as he brought her flush against him, the water surging between their bodies and then gone as her chest met his. He felt her breasts press against him, full and bare and warm even in the heat of the spring, her nipples stiff where they dragged across his skin. She was generous everywhere — he could see it even now, even through the displacement of the water, the heavy swell of her cleavage where it pressed between them, water beading in the hollow of it, running in rivulets between her breasts and down.

He kissed her back.

Not soft. Not tentative. He kissed her the way she’d asked to be kissed, mouth moving against hers with a thorough unhurried authority that made her fingers tighten on his cock and her breath stutter against his lips.

”Mm—” The sound she made into his mouth was low and involuntary, her whole body pressing closer, chasing the contact. Her hand hadn’t stopped moving — stroking him under the water, slow and relentless, her grip working the full length of him — and she could feel him now, fully hard, the weight and thickness of him filling her palm in a way that made her stomach tighten.

”Your hand,” he said against her lips, ”can’t even wrap around it.”

”No,” she breathed, sounding entirely pleased about that fact. She squeezed, just to confirm it, her fingers pressing and falling short, and smiled against his mouth. ”It can’t.”

The waterfall murmured behind them. The night pressed close and warm around the treeline. And Ayame’s hand moved beneath the still dark water, her breasts soft and insistent against his chest, her mouth open and wanting against his, and Nathan let the moment sit exactly where it was — right on the edge of the thing she was asking for — while his arm stayed locked at her back and kept her pressed against him, going nowhere.

She moaned quietly in his mouth when he rolled his hips forward into her grip.

”Ryo,” she whispered with sweet breath.

Nathan answered it by pulling her closer still, and kissing her even stronger.