My cheeks flooded with warmth. The statement was hard to refute, and thank goodness, I didn’t have to, because the hostess interrupted just then.
“Mr. Kincaid, your table is ready.” She started to lead the way back toward the restaurant.
Donovan put his arm out, waiting for me before he followed her. “Sabrina?”
“I haven’t decided if I’m staying yet.” He’d made it clear I wasn’t important or significant to him. On top of that, he believed I cared about him more than I should. Now I wasn’t just mad and hurt, I was also humiliated.
His expression said he found my emotional turmoil a bit boring or at least unnecessary. “Yes, you have. Why else would you have come at all?”
He’d caught me. Because of course I wouldn’t have shown up if I weren’t going to stay for something. And he’d only just arrived, so I couldn’t go now. Things were just getting started. Who the hell did I think I was fooling trying to pretend otherwise?
It didn’t make it any easier to accept. In fact, it felt like a trap. Like I’d been bullied, even though, of course, I was here of my own accord. Which was probably the worst part of all.
My frown deepened. “Fuck you.”
“We’ll get there.” This time his smile was a promise, and that was something I wanted him very badly to make good on in very bad ways.
As if sensing my defenses weakening, he pressed on. “At least stay for dinner. You’re here. You’re hungry. So am I.” This time he backed up the promise with his eyes—they were dark, more brown than green, dilated with desire, telling me his hunger belonged to more than just his stomach.
Yeah, I was hungry too. Very hungry.
But he’d made me feel shitty. Then been late for our dinner. And then made me feel shitty again.
“I know you didn’t eat much for lunch. You really should stay.” There was a note of concern in his tone that disarmed me.
“How do you know what I ate for lunch?” I hadn’t had much. I’d shoved a few bites of a salad in between agenda items, and I was ravenous.
“Because you had a team meeting, and you never eat much when you’re working.”
Damn, he really did still notice everything. My anger melted as my chest warmed.
“Fine. I’ll stay. Because I’m already here.” I let him put his hand at the small of my back and lead me to the front of the restaurant. It didn’t matter that I had two layers of clothing between his palm and my skin. The power of his touch came from the pressure he wielded as he directed me past tables, around this group of drinkers, around that crowd of lingering bar patrons.
It felt like a form of surrender, and for a few minutes at least, it seemed like I could give everything over to him—not just the path I walked, not just my body, but these stupid tangled up sentiments dwelling inside of me. I could give him my anger. I could give him my embarrassment. I could give him my hurt. And maybe he didn’t know any better what to do with them than I did, but for however long he held them, I wouldn’t have to feel them. And what an amazing gift that could be.
That alone would be worth staying for.
But then we were led beyond the hostess station to the coat check where two dark wooden benches lined the sides of the room. Donovan dropped his hand and my jumbled up emotions flooded back like a dam had broken.
“Please. Take your shoes off here,” the hostess said.
I knew about the Japanese formality in households, but I hadn’t been to a restaurant that had required it. Donovan sat down to remove his shoes. I hesitated, too consumed with the absence of his hand on me. I missed it already. Missed its heat. Missed its authority.
God, what was my problem?
And of course I was still standing there, shoes untouched, looking like an idiot when Donovan was already done. He looked up at me, his head tilted, then tapped his thigh, indicating I put my foot there. So I did.
After he undid the buckle of one strappy sandal and removed it slowly from my foot—which, holy hell, was maybe one of the sexiest things ever—he gestured for me to switch feet. When I did, my skirt caught on my garter, and though I fixed it almost right away, I saw Donovan staring before I did.
As fussed as I’d been all afternoon, the buzz I had from catching him checking me out was amazing. It was especially amazing when he had to adjust his pants when he stood again.
After we checked our shoes and coats, we followed our escort downstairs where the restaurant was actually located. As we walked down the narrow hall, we passed individual dining spaces, each separated by sliding shoji doors. Another set of doors was available to shut the rooms off entirely, but most of them were open. In each room, the dining table was low to the ground, and instead of chairs, they were surrounded by cushions for guests to sit on. Kneel on, actually.
I’d seen those kinds of tables in movies but never in a restaurant. In fact, they were exactly what I imagined when I thought of dining in a Japanese home.
“The tables are those kind,” I said, not knowing how else to express my surprise. “All little and low.”
“They’re called chabudai. I have one at my apartment.”
“That’s interesting.” Kind of cool was what I meant, but I wasn’t all the way ready to be friendly yet. Especially now that he no longer had his hand on my back.
“Okazu is a traditional Japanese restaurant,” he explained. “These are called tatami rooms, named for the straw mats, which are easily damaged and hard to clean. It’s why we took off our shoes.”
I smiled as we passed a little boy who waved at me over his soup bowl.
“Hard to clean but they’re kept under people when they eat food?” I was willing to bet that little kid alone had as much rice under his feet as he did in his belly.
The hostess stopped and gestured for us to enter our room.
“Have you never eaten Japanese before?” Donovan asked smugly from behind me as we walked in.
“Yes,” I said, offended. In fact, my first experience eating it had been with Weston back at Harvard all those years ago. Not something I intended to bring up now. “I might not be as experienced in the world as you are, but I am a somewhat cultured eater.”
I knelt where I was directed on the cushion near the far end of the table. “Now I haven’t eaten at a Japanese restaurant anywhere as fancy or as traditional as Okasu, but the food’s essentially the same, I’m sure.”
The hostess gasped while Donovan, who was unbuttoning his suit jacket so he could sit down, broke into a grin.
My eyes darted from one of them to the other. “Okay. What did I say wrong? Is the food totally different?”
Donovan knelt at the head of the table next to me. “It’s Okazu . Not okasu. The first, which is the name of the restaurant, is a word that means food that accompanies rice. The second is a verb. That means rape.”
I rolled my eyes, taking a menu from the hostess before she scurried out of the room. “Who would name a restaurant something so close to a word that you’d never want the place to be called?”
Donovan bent over his own menu. “Both could be appropriate depending on how well our dinner goes.”
I scowled, but something hummed deep in my belly and spread between my thighs. And I was pretty sure my scowl didn’t look as sour as I’d meant it to, so I hid behind the menu for as long as I could.
Which was about three seconds.
Then I sighed when I couldn’t read a single word. “This might as well be Chinese,” I said, throwing it down in front of me.
“It’s Japanese.”
“Oh, yeah.” I managed a smile at my stupid word choice. “I guess you can order for me.”
“I already planned to.” It was another remark that deserved a glare, and I was sure to deliver.
When the waitress arrived a few minutes later, she brought a porcelain container and two cups, which she set down on the table in front of us. Then Donovan proceeded to order in fluent Japanese, which was also a lot sexier than I could have imagined. As was seeing him
sitting so comfortably on his knees. Basically, I was learning that almost everything where Donovan was concerned was a lot sexier than it should be.
Which made things complicated. I could understand a sex only thing between us, but if he made everything so sexy, then what did that leave as not sex?
The whole thing was frustrating, and that wasn’t helping my underlying mood.
When the waitress left, Donovan poured the liquid from the container into one of the cups and turned to me.
“We need to talk about why you’re still wearing your panties.”
I hadn’t told him. And my little mishap with the skirt upstairs hadn’t been enough to show off the goods. He just knew. Like always.
“I bet you’re still wearing your underwear too,” I said as sassily as I could. Though I was pretty sure his weren’t nearly as wet as mine were at the moment.
He handed the cup out to me. “Drink this.”
“Why? Did you spike it when I blinked?”
He glowered at me. “I don’t need to spike it. I’m trying to help you with the stick up your ass.”
I let that sink in. “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined you accusing me of having a stick up my ass.”
He dipped his thumb in the cup and then smeared my bottom lip with the liquid. “That’s how wound up you are. You’re the uptight one tonight.”
A shiver ran down my spine and my lungs suddenly felt constrained, like my bra was too tight. I licked the liquid from my lip—sake—and wished I could suck the rest from his thumb.
Except I was still feeling all the other things I was feeling, too.
“Did you consider that I might have reason to be wound up? That the reason might be you?” I took a swallow of the sake, finding it more acidic than I’d expected, which fittingly matched my mood.
He leaned close and the warmth of his breath at my neck accompanied his next words. “I don’t care why you’re wound up. I care what you’re wearing.”
Yep. Panties definitely weren’t dry.
“There’s a restroom in the hall to the left,” he said, believing he had me under his command.
Apparently, he wasn’t wrong. “I’ll be back.”
In the bathroom, I slipped into a stall, undid my garters and, while continuously shaking my head at myself, removed my panties. I still didn’t have anywhere to put them, so I wadded them into a ball in my fist and stopped at the mirror to check my lip gloss and give myself a silent pep talk.
Being mad wasn’t making the night better for me. Nor was being confused or frustrated or hurt. And none of it was meant to make the night better for him. So what was the point of holding on to these miserable emotions?
No point. No point at all.
With my panties still hidden in my fist, I returned to the table, knelt at my place, and dropped them discreetly in Donovan’s lap.
He held them up like they were treasured lace and swept them under his nose as though attempting to identify the bouquet of a wine cork.
“Oh my god!” Nervously I glanced around the restaurant. The people across the hall weren’t paying attention to us, thank goodness, and no one was walking by. The lights were dim and shadows could be seen through the thin walls between rooms, but I couldn’t make out what our neighbors were doing. No one would be able to tell that Donovan was showing off my panties.
“I didn’t have anywhere to put them,” I explained, when I felt less panicked about his display.
His eyes narrowed in on my mouth. “I can think of somewhere I’d like to put them.”
I took a breath but only managed a shallow one. It had been an element of some of my fantasies—Donovan stuffing my panties in my mouth to keep me from screaming. The image was already burned into my mind from previous daydreams, but now I had a feeling that the image was burned into his mind as well.
And, Jesus, there’d been a good reason I’d been wearing panties. Was I leaving wet stains on the cushion now?
Someone walked past our room. My hand shot out over Donovan’s forearm and pushed it below the table, into his lap. “But we’re in public. So you can put them in your pocket and return them to me later.”
“Yes,” he said, with a victorious smirk. “I can put them in my pocket.” He knelt higher so he could stuff them in his pants pocket then fell back on his feet.
I had a pretty good feeling I was never seeing that pair of underwear again.
With my panties no longer a source of distraction, I noticed something new had been placed on the table since I’d been in the restroom—a silver platter with a lid. Next to it was a pair of metal tongs.
I nodded toward the dish. “What’s that?”
He took off the lid and steam rushed out. Several towels were rolled up in a pile inside. With the tongs, he picked up a rolled towel and set it on the table long enough to replace the lid. “It’s customary to wash our hands before the meal.”
He picked up the towel and unrolled it, bouncing it from hand to hand a few times until it cooled enough to hold. Then he gestured for me to hold out my hands toward him. Carefully and attentively, he cleaned between each of my fingers and washed my palms and the backs of my hands.
It was strangely erotic and sensual, but it was also intimate. Tender, even. And so while it made my thighs clench and my blood rush hot, it also made my breath stick in my chest. My head felt dizzy.
The moment was too heavy. Like a weightlifter trying to hold a barbell that’s too weighted, I couldn’t hold it without it pressing down on my chest. Without it crushing down on my heart. Without it meaning something that it wasn’t supposed to mean.
I giggled, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re washing my panties off my hands.”
“Such a shame.” His tone remained thick and humorless, and instead of letting the moment ease, he bore into me with a gaze so intense, it carried its own gravity.
Was he like this with everyone? Just sex. No relationships. Could he really look at a person—look at me—and not intend the burden that was clearly in his stare? Could he really witness this extreme force between us and say it didn’t connect us in any way except sexually?
Was it only me who felt the weight at all?
He finished with my hands and moved to his own then dumped the towel on an empty plate that seemed to be for discarded linens. He poured himself some sake, and we each drank in silence.
I took the moment to knock myself out of the stupid trance I’d been in.
Of course it was only me who was feeling these things. That was why he’d given me the speech about no relationships in the first place. And, in all honesty, I wouldn’t even be thinking along these lines if he hadn’t yelled at me earlier about it and put the idea in my head.
Just sex. Got it. I was all for it. I wasn’t into anything more than that myself. Bring the waitress back. I could order this without help, no menu required—just sex. No adornments, no side dishes, no appetizers. Just plain sex.
What else would I want with a man like Donovan anyway? Overnights? Romance? Marriage?
I almost laughed at the idea.
No. There were men who were intended for futures, and there were men who were intended for filth. Donovan was intended for filth, and he was wise to lay it out from the beginning.
I tried not to think about the fact that he’d had a fiancée once upon a time. Because what did it mean Donovan was intended for then?
In all honesty, it probably wasn’t that simple, and I needed to accept that. Otherwise I’d kill myself wondering if what it really meant was that he just wasn’t intended for me.
Chapter 24
When the waitress returned, she brought someone else with her to help carry the trays of food. Together, the two servers placed dishes of soup and sushi and tempura and fish on the table. Afterward, they stood back with their hands in front of them and seemed to wait for something. For what, I didn’t know.
Maybe we were supposed to taste our food before they left? Tell them everything was
all good or something.
I looked to Donovan for guidance.
He brought his hands to his lap, and I mirrored him instinctively. “In Japanese culture,” he said, “before we start eating, we say itadakimasu.”
He’d only said it one time, but he looked at me expectantly.
I gave him my you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “I can’t say that. What did you say? Say it again. Slower.”
He started to answer and then seemed to have another idea. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a marker from an inner pocket and took off the lid with his teeth—another super sexy move.
“Give me your hand,” he said around the lid, though he needn’t have said anything because he’d already tugged it over to him and had started writing.
“You just happen to have a Sharpie in your pocket? Of course you do. Did I mention you were a workaholic? Also, this is never coming off.” Thank god we were coming on November, and I could get away with wearing long sleeves. Sharpie was impossible to wash off as it was, and as I stared at his neat print handwriting on my skin, I wasn’t sure I was planning to try that hard.
“It-a-dak-i-ma-su,” I read slowly from my arm when he was done. It came out better than I’d thought it would on the first try, which wasn’t saying much. I glanced up and found him trying to hide a grin. His eyes twinkled, though, and he couldn’t hide that. “You’re laughing at me.”
“No, you did pretty good. It was cute.” He said the word cute as though he’d never had a reason to say it before.
I rolled my eyes. Cute was not what I wanted him to think of when he thought of me. “What does it mean?”
“It means, ‘I receive this food’. You’re thanking the preparers for their work, telling them you appreciate what they’ve done for you.”
“Oh!” I turned to the waitress and her helper who were still standing in a bowed position, politely waiting to be dismissed. “Itadakimasu,” I told them.
They smiled and nodded.
Donovan followed up with a whole bunch of Japanese words that were not itadakimasu and also seemed to be somewhat instructive in tone. When he’d finished speaking, they bowed and exited the room, shutting the sliding doors as they left.
Need you Now (Top Shelf Romance Book 2) Page 21