White Tiger (11 page)

The second spot of trouble were the phone calls, those terse conversations he tried to keep hidden from her, when he spoke mostly Chinese. It was during these calls that his black times would return, and while he did all he could to shield her from them, she perceived them as easily if they were bright sunlight shining against her closed eyelids. They were there, they would never go away, and they would both have to face them. For without him, she could likely not go on.

And that was how the hit man and the porn star developed their relationship.

After three months, Ryoko was well enough to return to her work. And Manning’s employers were anxious that he return as well. But no matter how far away from each other they were, they had forged a bond between them; they were forever connected by a silver thread of pain.

###

Manning’s apartment was the same as he had left it. He had forgotten to run the dishwasher after dinner, but that was the only thing he could hold against himself insofar as his home went. He shrugged out of his jacket, not having to worry about the pistol as he had already disposed of it. She walked into the living room and slid onto the couch, waiting for him. Manning hung up his jacket in the hall closet and removed his shoes, then padded after her.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Thirsty?”

She smiled up at him, and behind the beauty of the action, he saw the sadness she still carried with her. He touched her face, his fingertips tracing the outline of one alabaster cheek. She reached up and took his hand in her own. Brushed her lips across his fingers, something she always did that both thrilled him and made him uncomfortable. Manning knew he was the truly filthy one—compared to him she was practically an angel. And her work gave joy to her audience; Manning’s audience knew only fear and regret.

“Will you stay here tonight?” he asked.

“Please,” she replied quickly, then added: “If you wish it.”

“I wish it.”

She smiled and drew him toward her, her mouth opening beneath his like a butterfly spreading its wings. His hands stroked her face, hands that dealt the harshest of punishments to all but her, hands whose very touch thrilled and warmed her in a way she had never felt with any other. He was foot taller than she was, and weighed more than twice as much; she had no hope of defending herself if he wished her harm, but the connection between them was too strong for that. A connection that could never be rightfully defined as love, but one that served the same purpose.

She serviced him artfully, willingly, taking her time and using every ounce of skill she had. He deserved no less, for he treated her with respect and kindness, and she was duty-bound to return it in full. She removed his clothes and stroked the expanse of his body, her fingers roaming over corded muscle and the occasional rippling of scar tissue. He was in excellent physical condition, with a lean, taut body that possessed a natural physique honed by years of martial arts and a proper exercise regimen; she marveled inwardly at his condition, for it should have belonged to a man more than ten years his junior. She felt the tension slowly ebb from his muscles as he reacted to her soothing touch, and she was gratified by that.

He was much better endowed than most of the men she worked with, and she viewed the size of his penis with both awe and anticipation. It surged beneath her hand when she touched it, and she gently stroked its hard length as her own body reacted to the sight and feel of it. Slowly, she ran her hand up and down its span, feeling the shape of its contours, the throbbing veins beneath the soft flesh covering what felt like polished glass. It was perfectly shaped, circumcised, something she rarely saw in the course of her work but something she appreciated from an aesthetic point of view. She knew many, many of the finely-coiffed and manicured beauties which populated Roppongi and Shibuya and Ginza would find equal joy in touching such a member, but she knew that she alone was able to feel the thrill of it. His testes had drawn tight against his body.

Ryoko lowered her head and kissed the head gently, and the sensation her lips evoked made him gasp and shudder. She was finely attuned to his rhythms, and she fully understood that he needed release as quickly as she could grant it. His needs weren’t created from selfishness, but from actual necessity, as his life and work were replete with stresses that could not only physically cripple a man, but leave him psychologically devastated as well. To this end, she served as a therapist of sorts; she tended to the needs and desires of his body, placating them so that his mind and heart could work together to overcome the deeper strains she could not reach. Over the course of the past year, Ryoko had come to understand this duty, and had eagerly accepted it, for he also fed her body and spirit and mind with what she required. It was true two-way street.

As she kissed his member again, and allowed her tongue to slowly stroke the head, he moaned and reached for her, but she gently pushed his hands away. As she did so, she began to work on him more earnestly, taking him in her mouth more fully. Her line of work had allowed her to refine her skills, and she fellated him not just expertly, but artfully. As always, she granted him access to her skills not because she was required to, but because she hungered for it as much, if not more, than he did.

“Ryoko,” he moaned, his hips thrusting upward of their own accord. She accepted him as deeply as she could, his size filling her completely as her lips and tongue and teeth and hand worked on him, pistoning up and down his length with as much speed and finesse as she could muster. Already, she tasted the precursor emanating from him. He was on the verge of release, his breath quickening, his moans growing louder, his head thrown back against the softness of the leather couch. Ryoko redoubled her efforts, hungry for him now, moaning in her throat. The core of her own sex was flaming like a small star.

“Ryoko!”
Manning gasped, and he shuddered as his orgasm crested like a wave rising over a rocky beach. He grunted as he shot and shot and shot, and she moaned as his essence filled her mouth, greedily drinking it down, something she did for no other man. Manning continued to tremble even after the tide of pleasure began to recede; Ryoko slowed her actions, become less direct, more gentle, realizing that his nerve endings were now hyper-aware, overly responsive to even the simplest stimulation. She kissed the head of his penis lovingly; the fury of his erection was merely blunted, not defeated.

For a few minutes, he was content to lie on the couch. Then he reacted then with quick urgency. He swept Ryoko up in his arms and lowered her to the couch as he hovered above her. His fingers roamed over her clothing, unbuckling, unfastening, unbuttoning; within moments, she was completely naked, and he luxuriated in the sight of her: dark brown hair, skin the color of alabaster, firm and completely natural breasts, a narrow waist which served as the gateway to the gentle fluting of her hips and her slender legs. At their apex was the patch of crisp pubic hair, as dark as night, neatly-trimmed in contravention of her industry, in which most men preferred it to be wild and untamed. She did this for him, because it inflamed his desire even more. Ryoko parted her willowy thighs, and he could glimpse the sheen of moisture on her lips reflecting the wan light. Manning looked into her lovely eyes, and found them heavy-lidded in lust, her sensuous lips slightly parted, her white teeth gleaming. Manning lowered himself toward her, kissing her face, her lips, and her neck gently, lovingly now that the tide of his passion had been momentarily deflected. He kneaded her breasts for a time before favoring each peach-colored nipple with attention, making them rise and stand erect like small cherries. Ryoko quivered beneath him, writhing slightly, her small hands wrapped around the back of his head, allowing the pleasure to wash over her like a warm spring’s rain, surrendering to it. He displayed artistry of his own, fueling the raging fires that burned so insistently between her legs. As he trailed kisses down her flat, taut belly, she arched her hips toward him; he responded as she wished, the silky heat of her sex beckoning to him like a siren’s call to a sailor in the midst of a dark, foggy night at sea.

Ryoko gasped deeply when his lips finally brushed against her, and she clenched her fingers into balled fists. As Manning fed on her fire, the radiant heat coursed through her body like electricity through a wire; within seconds, her muscles rippled of their own volition, completely uncontrollable by her for as long as his lips and tongue continued their ministrations against the core of her sex. Her moans grew in accordance with the heat, and soon she was almost screaming as a fireball consumed her, racing outward from her hips to streak throughout her body, faster than a supersonic fighter jet. Ryoko shuddered spasmodically once, then twice as she suffered through another salvo, then yet again, her breath coming from her in great, ragged gasps.

Finally, she had to push him away from her, gasping for air.

“Enough,” she panted. “Enough.
Kuso,
you’re good!”

Manning kissed her wet nub, and the action elicited another cry from her.

“Glad you like it,” he murmured, and kissed her there again. Her hips jerked in response.

“Fuck me, Jerry,” she whispered in English, her chosen language for love. “Fuck me!” she ordered.

Manning swept her small frame up into his arms and lifted her from the couch. Ryoko wrapped her legs around his waist, her wet mount pressed against his thick tumescence, the contact transferring each throb from him to her. She seized his head in both hands and kissed him, her tongue like a hot poker. Manning held her in midair by grasping her behind the knees, spreading her thighs wide as he lowered her onto him. Ryoko cried out, still tonguing him, as the head of his thick phallus pierced her. He then impelled himself inside of her until he was hilted. Ryoko trembled and broke off the kiss.

“Ikasete!”
she gasped in Japanese, her English forgotten for the moment.
“Ikasete! Sugu ikasete!”
she commanded, directing him to make her come now. Manning thrust into her as she grabbed his shoulders and lifted herself up and threw herself down upon his shaft with as much strength and vigor as she could muster. Manning increased his tempo, his hips slamming into her again and again until his breath grew ragged and his arms burned. Ryoko shuddered spasmodically once again, head thrown back, mouth wide, eyelids clenched shut as she rode the tsunami of heat once again.

“Ah...
ah! Yes!
”

When her tremors subsided, Manning pulled out of her. She made a disappointed sound, and looked up at him when he slowly lowered her to the carpeted floor, her eyes searching his face. Manning kissed her gently then guided her toward the window, where the lights of Minato-ku still burned even though it was almost 4:00
am
.
She smiled suddenly, knowing what he had in mind.

“You say you always like the view from up here,” he said, and she reached out and grabbed the windowsill. The large panes of glass revealed all to her, and she bent at the waist. She needn’t have bothered; Manning grabbed her hips and lifted her in midair, so she was balancing on her hands like an acrobat in the middle of a performance.

“
Yaté!
Fuck me!”

She cried out as Manning obeyed and his shaft split her once again. She braced herself against the windowsill as well as she was able while her lover worked in earnest, driving himself deeply inside her like a powerful machine, what the Japanese called
piston undu,
hard fucking. He kept up the pace, slamming into her again and again, and the night lights of Minato-ku swam in and out of focus as she erupted with her sixth orgasm, fueled by the heavy throbbing of Manning as he gasped himself and filled her with his seed, his spurts entering her like a heavy tide.

CHAPTER 5

Dalian, People’s Republic of China

At the Best Western Premier Dalian Harbor View Hotel, a name difficult to string together in any language, Chen Song tried to lose himself in the luxury of cable television, something that was found only in the upper-tier hotels or the homes of the wealthy or well-connected. After all, cable providers such as HBO and Cinemax served as windows to the decadent West, and the Chinese leadership in Beijing was not yet prepared for the unwashed masses that comprised China to be exposed to the true freedoms that lay outside the nation’s borders. Besides, there was nothing else to do; the suitcases he and his uncle had given to the
Bái Hu
had made their way onto a Japan Air Lines freighter, not a commercial flight, and they would not become available until tomorrow afternoon in Shanghai. This was another of a multitude of things which caused Chen Gui to agonize incessantly. The most immediate was that the hotel, Dalian’s best, was full; it was only through the efforts of Boss Tao that Chen Song and his uncle had found a single room to share. Chen Gui had groused at the lack of suites, but when faced with the choice between sharing a reasonably-clean hotel room with his nephew or risking even worse accommodations, Chen Gui had swallowed his considerable consternation and accepted what could be provided. He chose instead to prowl the entire room (which in Chen Song’s estimation wasn’t so bad, really), stalking back and forth like an angry tiger. He clutched his cell phone in his right hand like a man whose life depended on receiving one important call.