Yukihime held it. Then she reached up both hands to the collar of her kimono and drew it slowly off her shoulders, the pale silk parting to reveal skin that was the white of fresh snow and somehow warmer than anything that color had any right to be — luminous and flawless, untouched by time or cold or the thousand years of solitude that had shaped everything else about her.

Still holding his gaze, Yukihime let the kimono fall.

It happened slowly — the silk whispering down her arms, catching for a moment at her elbows before she shrugged it loose and let it pool around her waist in a loose tangle of pale fabric. She didn’t look away from him. Whatever courage had carried her this far, she wasn’t surrendering it now, even as the cool air of the room settled against her bare skin and raised every fine hair on her body.

Nathan forgot how to breathe.

She was — God, she was something else entirely. Her skin was white the way fresh snow was white, that particular shade that didn’t look real, like something carved rather than born. No sun had ever laid claim to her. No one had. The thought struck him somewhere low and hot and stayed there. Her breasts sat high and full on her chest, the kind of full that his palm would barely contain, soft curves that threatened to spill over the second he touched them. And her nipples — pale pink, already stiff, already begging — stood up tight in the cool air like they were reaching for something.

Him, probably.

He moved before he’d made the conscious decision to. One second he was seating across from her, the next he had one hand flat on the mat beside her head and she was on her back beneath him, kimono splayed open, silver hair fanned out around her, looking up at him with those wide eyes that held equal parts want and terror.

He let her look. Gave her a second to breathe.

Then he reached down and touched her.

Just his palm, cupping her right breast — and Yukihime’s whole body flinched like he’d struck a match against her.

"Haa—" The sound slipped out of her, barely more than a breath, her lips parting. Her eyes fluttered half-shut. He felt her skin under his hand and understood immediately: she was cold. Not room-temperature cold. Cold like she’d been kept somewhere dark and still, like her body didn’t generate heat on its own, like she’d been waiting a long time for something warm enough to thaw her.

He was warm enough.

He stroked her slowly, his palm dragging over the soft weight of her, learning the shape of her, and her chest rose sharply on an inhale. When his thumb found her nipple and rolled over it — just once, easy, barely any pressure — she made a sound that shot straight down his spine.

"Yes— please, Nathan-sama—" Her voice cracked on his name, raw and unsteady. Her arms stretched up above her head and her legs shifted apart on the mat beneath him, not thinking, just responding, her body already operating on some instinct she hadn’t known she had. "Touch me— please—"

He smirked, low and slow, and bent his head to her chest.

His tongue touched her nipple first — flat and warm and unhurried — and Yukihime’s back arched clean off the mat.

"Haaahn❤️!"

The sound she made was broken wide open, her head tipping back so far he could see the long pale line of her throat straining above him. He pulled her nipple between his lips and sucked it gently, his tongue circling, and she keened — actually keened, this soft helpless little cry — her fingers finding his hair without any apparent direction from her brain and gripping.

She tasted cold. Even her skin tasted cold against his mouth, and the contrast was doing something vicious to him, this strange intimacy of being the warmest thing she’d ever had pressed against her.

He moved to her other breast, mouthing at the soft underside first, kissing a lazy path upward until he reached the peak of it, and her whole body was trembling now, a fine shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature.

"Mm❤️ haa❤️ haaa❤️" She was panting in small broken bursts, the sounds punching out of her with every drag of his tongue. "Yes— yesss— please—"

He pulled back just far enough to speak, his lips brushing against her nipple as he did. "Has anyone ever touched you like this?"

The pause that followed was long enough to tell him the answer before she gave it.

"N— no one," she whispered. Her cheeks had gone a deep, hectic pink against all that white skin, the flush spreading down her throat and across her chest. "No one has ever—"

She stopped. Swallowed.

He looked at her for a moment — this beautiful strange cold creature laid out beneath him with her kimono undone and her nipples wet from his mouth and her legs already falling open without her realizing it — and felt something sharp and possessive dig in behind his ribs.

Her fiancé had run. Hadn’t even gotten this far. Hadn’t put his hands on her, hadn’t learned the sounds she made, hadn’t seen the way her composure cracked the second someone touched her like she was worth touching.

Coward didn’t even cover it.

Nathan dropped his head back to her breast, cupped both of them in his hands — they filled his palms and then some, soft weight spilling over his fingers, and she sucked in a sharp breath at the pressure — and dragged his tongue in a long slow stripe across her cleavage, tasting the cold of her, warming it up inch by inch.

"Hmm~ haaa❤️ please..." Yukihime’s nails scraped lightly at his scalp, not directing, just holding on. Her hips were moving now in tiny helpless circles, chasing something she didn’t have words for yet. "Yes— yes, please, more—"

He kissed the swell of her right breast. Then the left. Then back to her nipple, closing his teeth around it with the barest edge of pressure — enough to make her gasp, sharp and startled — before soothing it with the flat of his tongue.

Her thighs pressed together under him and she whimpered his name again, softer this time, less composure and more desperation, the syllables coming apart at the seams.

He was just getting started.

His mouth found hers before she had time to prepare for it.

No warning, no slow approach — just his lips pressing down onto hers, warm and certain, and Yukihime made a small stunned sound against him that he swallowed whole. She’d never been kissed before. He could tell immediately. She didn’t know what to do with her mouth, held it still and slightly parted while her brain tried to catch up to what her body was already feeling, fingers tightening in his hair like she needed something to anchor her to the earth.

He was patient about it.

He kissed her soft and slow, teaching her without making it a lesson — a gentle drag of his bottom lip against hers, coaxing, then the tip of his tongue tracing the seam of her mouth until she opened for him on a shaky exhale. When he deepened it she whimpered into him, this small overwhelmed sound, and her whole body pressed up into his like she was trying to get closer through sheer want alone.

He kept one hand on her breast the whole time.

Kneading her slowly, his thumb brushing back and forth across her stiff nipple while he kissed her, and every pass made her twitch against him, little involuntary flinches of pleasure she couldn’t suppress. He swallowed every sound she made. Drank them down. When he finally pulled back from her mouth she chased him — actually chased him, her head lifting off the mat — and he let her catch him, gave her another kiss, shorter this time, just his lips closing over her bottom lip and sucking it gently.

"Hnn—" Her breath shuddered out of her.

He did it again. Sucked her lip slow and deliberate, dragging it slightly between his teeth before releasing it, and her fingers curled hard in his hair.

"Nathan-sama—" His name came out slurred, drunk-sounding. Her bluish lips were red now, flushed from the attention, slightly swollen, and she looked absolutely ruined already and he’d barely started.

He moved to her jaw. Kissed the hinge of it, the soft skin just beneath her ear, then nosed down and found her neck — and Yukihime’s head fell back like she had no choice in the matter, baring the long white column of her throat to him completely.

"Haaah❤️" Long and trembling. Her nails scraped lightly at his scalp.

He took his time with her neck. Long slow kisses first, lips dragging down the pale skin, pausing to suck gently just below her jaw — she squeaked, sharp and sudden, the sound punching out of her — then working lower, his tongue drawing a slow wet line along her pulse point where he could feel her heartbeat hammering. Fast. Frantic. He pressed his lips there and just felt it for a moment, that drumbeat under cold skin, and the possessive thing behind his ribs dug in a little deeper.

His hands were moving at the same time.

He found the loose fall of her kimono, already half-undone, and spread it. Slow. All the way. His knuckles brushed her ribs as he drew the fabric aside and she shivered hard beneath him, a full-body shudder, but didn’t reach for it. Didn’t cover herself. Just lay there with her arms above her head and her throat bared and let him look.

And, he looked.

She was bare underneath. All of her, nothing hidden now — the flat pale plane of her stomach, the flare of her hips, no hair between her thighs. Cold white skin everywhere, perfect and untouched, rising and falling with quick shallow breaths as he ran his gaze over every inch of her.

"D...Don’t stare, Ryo-sama" she whispered, voice cracking. Her cheeks were blazing.

"I’ll stare as long as I want," he said against her collarbone, and kissed it.

She made a strangled noise that was almost a laugh and then immediately stopped being a laugh when his hand slid down her stomach.

He went slow. Dragged his palm across the flat of her belly, felt the muscles jump beneath his touch, trailed his fingertips through the soft hair at the apex of her thighs and just rested them there for a moment, not moving, waiting. Her breath had gone completely ragged. Her thighs pressed together on reflex and then — trembling — fell open.

He rewarded her for that.

His fingers slipped between her thighs and found her, and the first thing he registered was the contradiction of her: cold skin on the outside and beneath it — there — warmth. Wet warmth. Hidden heat that her body had been building without her permission, slick and soft and so fucking tender that when his fingertips brushed her folds for the first time she let out a sound like something had been knocked loose inside her.

"Haaa...haaan!, Nathan-sama—" Broken syllables, her hips rolling up without any intention behind them, chasing his hand.

He stroked her there gently, learning her the way he’d learned her breasts — unhurried, thorough — two fingers parting her folds and sliding through the wet heat of her, not pushing inside yet, just drazing up and down that soft split of her while his mouth continued its slow worship of her neck and chest. She was soaking. Even cold as she ran, her pussy was molten, slick against his fingers, clenching softly on nothing every time he passed close to her entrance.

"Hmmm~ please~~" She was grinding against his hand now, small helpless circles, shame clearly not winning whatever war it was fighting against the sensation. "Please, I— I don’t—"

"You don’t what?" he murmured against her throat, lips curling.

She didn’t have words for it. Of course she didn’t. She’d never felt this, didn’t have vocabulary for the ache he was building in her, for the way her own body had turned traitor and was begging openly for something it had never had. She just whimpered again — this soft, wrecked, utterly undone sound — her thighs trembling on either side of his hand, her hips rolling, fingers gripping his hair like letting go might mean losing the only real thing she’d ever felt.

He pressed his lips to her pulse point one more time, felt it hammering wild beneath his mouth, and let the tip of one finger find her entrance — just barely, just enough — circling slow and easy while she shook apart beneath him.

"Haaa❤️ haaa!! Yess!" Her voice had gone ragged, stripped of all that careful composure, nothing left but breath and want and the wet slide of his hand working her open by degrees.

"Cold outside," he said quietly against her skin, watching her come undone. "But not here."

Yukihime couldn’t answer. She just arched up into him and moaned.