Two weeks. One bed (virtually). Zero supervision.
Renji Ishida thought landing the lead beta-tester role for Tales of a Thousand Kami was the breaks of a lifetime. It's the world's first full-dive VR MMORPG, a hyper-realistic feudal fantasy where the wind on your face and the steel in your hand feel 100% real. But the dream job turns into a delicious nightmare when his testing partner walks through the door.
Hoshino Ayame.
She's forty-six, divinely elegant, and strictly off-limits.
She is also his best friend's mother.
Trapped in a sealed luxury suite for fourteen days, Renji and Ayame must navigate the breathtaking, dangerous world of the Kami together. In the game, he is a battle-hardened Ronin, and she is a pristine, mystical Shrine Maiden. But the BCI technology does more than just simulate combat-it replicates sensation with devastating fidelity.
Every accidental brush of a hand, every adrenaline-fueled embrace after a close battle, and every shared breath in the cramped confines of a virtual inn is felt with pulse-pounding reality. As Renji steps up to protect her from the monsters of the simulation, the adolescent crush he thought he'd buried roars back to life, hotter and heavier than before. And Ayame, lonely and rediscovering her own power, is beginning to look at her son's friend not as a boy, but as a man.
When a glitch in the privacy protocols exposes them to one another in the most vulnerable way possible, the thin line between their avatars and their true selves dissolves. Now, the scientists have withdrawn their supervision, leaving them completely alone.
The game is fantasy. The hunger is real.
Experience the start of a slow-burn, taboo romance where high-tech immersion meets primal desire. In a world of a thousand gods, the most dangerous thing to worship is her.
