Suddenly, I thought about Haru the Fox from the office and felt another wave of shame almost overwhelm me. “I’m sorry I’m not one of those women. I wish I could be free. I wish I could just have fun. My boss told me that it was my choice to do whatever I wanted outside working hours. I wish I could take you back to my hotel room and just not give a shit. I wish I could wake up in the morning, smile, and act like nothing happened. But I can’t. That’s not me. And I accept that, and I’ll try to change. I’ll try to be a more open person.”
Julian grimaced and put up a hand as though he meant to comfort me. “Rika, I—”
I pushed his hand away. “No. Don’t. Don’t you dare try to say sorry or console me. You’re right. It was underhanded of me to use you and then blame it on alcohol because I was too embarrassed to admit that, yes, sex is good and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying it. But I was raised in a society where no one talks about it and the people who do enjoy it are seen as freaks and perverts, not healthy, normal people, even though it should be the other way around.”
He was quiet and then cocked his head to one side. “So? What happens now?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to smile. I failed miserably, I thought. “Well, I just poured everything out to you. In truth, I’m just a neurotic bookworm who thinks you are incredibly attractive and I don’t even know what to do with myself when you’re around me.” I laughed. The sound was strident, harsh to even my own ears. “Rika Hasegawa in a nutshell.”
He nodded and pushed away from the wall. “I have to admit, when I dragged you here, this conversation was not what I thought was going to happen.”
“Yeah? What did you think was going to happen?”
His lips twitched. “I thought I was going to have to hold the hair out of your face while you puked up half a bowl of Caesar salad into a toilet.”
I scoffed. “I haven’t had a hangover since I left college.”
“You wanna give it a shot?”
I made a face. “Better not. I’ve got an early start tomorrow morning. Mr. Miyano would eat me for breakfast if I showed up hung over to our booth.”
His grin was sizzling hot and I fought back a sigh. “So, since you mentioned that you think I am, as per your words, incredibly attractive, how about I eat you for breakfast?”
Bright, lurid images of his golden head between my thighs ran through my mind. “Um, that is incredibly tempting, but—”
He waved a finger at me. “What did I say about being sexually restrained? If it’s something you want, but you’re not doing it because society tells you it’s wrong, then there’s something wrong with you. Now, if you don’t do it because you don’t want to do it, that’s a different matter. But if you’re pushing aside sex because you’re afraid of what people are going to say…well, fuck ’em, I say.”
I clenched my jaw and tried to calm the rapid beating of the pulse in my head as I thought about all the things he could do to me, to my body. “You are incredibly persuasive.”
He leaned in close, just as close as we were on the dance floor, and by instinct, I put up a hand against his chest. Not because I didn’t want him to touch me, but because years of habit had forced me to act like what society thought a proper unmarried woman should act like.
He looked down at that hand and then looked at me, his brow raised. “You don’t want this?”
I let out a slow breath. “You’re going to kill me, you know that?”
His brow remained up. “So?”
“I’m not going to say this hasn’t been fun.” I sighed. “But tomorrow is an early start. Honestly, even though I’m used to drinking, throwing down those shots wasn’t the smartest thing I could’ve done.”
He nodded and moved away. I told myself I didn’t miss his body heat against my always cold skin, but then I’d be a liar.
And for now, just for now, I wanted to be honest.
“I understand.” He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. “Shall we call it a night, then?”
Reluctantly, I agreed and followed him out, making sure to skirt around the edge of the dance floor so I didn’t get sucked back in and end up with shoe prints on my backside.
There was no longer any line to get in and I let Julian exchange goodbyes while the valet pulled the black SUV to the curb.
Julian opened the door for me, something I found refreshing. “Thank you.”
His eyes fair twinkled. “See? Look what a proper gentleman I am.”
“How you and Mr. Miyano ever became friends I’ll never know,” I said.
He laughed. “I ask myself that all the time.”
The drive back was strangely, oddly…comfortable. It should have been awkward. After all, Julian had pretty much accused me of being a tease and told me I was a hypocrite. I should’ve been fuming, all but ready to throw everything including the kitchen sink at his good-looking face.
But I wasn’t, because he hadn’t been wrong. It had been a hard pill to take, to admit I was one hell of a sexually stunted individual, but I couldn’t keep lying to him or me. I owed him more than that.
We didn’t say anything, and I dozed in my seat, the lights of the other cars lulling me to sleep. He had turned on the radio, some kind of talk show, the DJs talking inhumanly fast.
When we arrived back at the hotel, Julian had to shake my shoulder. I blinked up at him blearily, my mouth uncomfortably dry, as though I had fallen asleep with candy in my mouth.
“Come on, let’s get you to your room,” he said, even undoing my belt for me.
I was too sleepy to care.
“No, it’s fine.” I stifled a yawn that threatened to split my lips. “Please, you don’t have to go through all the effort. I can make it to my room. You’ve already done so much for me.”
He gazed at me from the driver’s side and the look on his face almost took my breath away.
It had been such a long time since I had someone look at me like that, like I was the only thing that mattered, that I was the beginning and the end to that person’s purpose in life.
“What if I said I wanted to?” His low voice sent all my nerve endings thrumming. “What if I want to be with you, even if it’s just for another five minutes?”
I hated being a bother, but if he put it like that… “Well, I suppose you could come in for some coffee.” I shot him a sideways glance. “And this time, when I say coffee, I mean coffee. If anything happens, I will not be in any condition to work tomorrow morning and Mr. Miyano will fire me.”
He grinned at me. “Deal.”
It was quite late by the time we made it to the elevators, almost one in the morning. I was not looking forward to getting up in five hours, less than five hours if I decided to take a shower rather than plowing headfirst into bed.
We rode the elevators up in silence standing next to each other, no contact, each of us looking everywhere else but ourselves.
The elevators opened and this time he followed me as I walked to the end of the hallway.
Quietly, I riffled through my handbag and slipped in my key card, taking care not to make any unnecessary noise. I didn’t know if Nobuki was back or if he was sleeping, but it seemed important he not catch me out here at one in the morning with his friend.
I put a finger to my lips as the door beeped twice and then opened. “Shh. I don’t want to wake up Mr. Miyano.”
He smiled and shook his head. “On second thought, I’ll take a rain check on that coffee. Maybe next time.”
“Oh,” I said, nonplussed.
What was I supposed to do? Just walk in and close to door behind him? Shake his hand? Thank him for an interesting evening?
“Tha—thank you,” I said hesitantly, because there was never a situation where thanks wouldn’t make things better. “Um, if it wasn’t for you, I would’ve had a pretty miserable night.”
“Yeah, that bastard has a tendency for ruining everyone’s fun,” he replied. “But you know what? When the shit hits the fan, there’s n
o one I would trust more than that stuck-up prig. For all his distant, haughty behavior, he does care about the people in his circle.”
I believed it. After all, didn’t he get me the medicine last week when I told him I was ill? “I know.”
“Night.” He turned to leave.
“Wait, Julian.”
I touched his arm and when he turned, a look of surprise on his face, I took a chance and pressed my lips against his.
He was rigid, his lips still and unmoving against mine, and disappointment filled my every pore. An apology sprang out of my mouth as I moved back.
But then his arms came around my waist, anchoring me to his rock-hard body, and then he was kissing me back.
He tasted like tequila and lime and I loved it. His tongue swept along my lower lip, eliciting me to open my mouth and I tasted him just that much deeper.
God, how long had it been since I felt this way? Since a guy was able to reduce me to a shivering, trembling mass of nerves just with the touch of his lips?
My hands went up and tangled with the hair at the nape of his neck as I drank deep of his tangy, sweet flavor, not willing to stop for anything in the world.
“Wait,” he whispered, his lips still touching mine. “Just wait a minute.”
I was breathing hard like I had just run a marathon, my heart pounding a million times a second. “Why?”
He swallowed. “We shouldn’t.”
I went cold.
Crap. Had I done the wrong thing?
No. I couldn’t have. He had reacted to my kiss. He kissed me back.
His lips looked swollen and he took a step back, running his fingers over his mouth. “You see that in your movies, too?”
I flushed under his frank gaze. “Maybe. But that’s not why I did it.”
“Why did you?”
I licked my lips and tasted him all over again. “I wanted to thank you. And I want you to know that I appreciate you.”
He laughed. “That’s one hell of a thank you.”
“Apparently not that good of one,” I said. “I mean, you did pull away.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Shit, Rika. If you only knew.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I left my car in the unloading zone. I’d better go before they call a tow truck.”
I nodded numbly. “O—okay.”
“But before I do.” He pressed a short, almost savage kiss to my temple. “There’s more from where that came from. I promise.”
He turned and walked down the hall, leaving me dumbfounded.
My hands curled into fists. I resisted the urge to throw myself at him, to tell him to make me forget, to make me his, but the urge passed as the seconds ticked by. I let myself back in, closing the door securely behind me.
I stood in front of the mirror, fingers pressed against my mouth as I remembered how his lips had felt against mine.
I’d read romance books, consumed the better ones. In them, the heroine was always on the verge of swooning when the hero touched her or kissed her. I used to scoff at such a notion that a single kiss could undo a person, but now I was starting to get second thoughts.
Quickly, I shimmied out of my clothes and took a brief hot shower that was almost enough to wash away any evidence I had ever been touched by a man who set my senses aflame.
When I crawled into the fluffy bed and the freshly changed linens, I didn’t dream of Nobuki.
Not one bit.
Chapter 8
“You seem unusually happy today.” Nobuki watched me over a pile of our translated books, a memoir of an infamous Yakuza member from the sixties. “Quite a change from yesterday.”
I whistled under my breath as I moved some boxes so they weren’t in the way. “I just took your word to heart yesterday. Yes, maybe the company did send you here because your face can attract a lot of people, but I’ve got to do my part, too. It’s my job, after all.”
He continued to look at me, not saying a thing, his brow raised in a quizzical manner.
“What?” I asked, hands on my hips. “Is there a problem?”
His jaw tightened. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
“I thought you would be happy.” I couldn’t keep the frustration out of my voice. “Yesterday you were angry I wasn’t happy and now you’re asking me why I’m so upbeat?”
He was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
“For?”
He looked away, his hands straightening the dark blue tie that did wonderful things with his dress shirt. “Yesterday. I was short with you. I’m sorry.”
My jaw fell. “Really? You’re apologizing?”
His lips were so thin they had practically vanished. “I don’t do it often. Take it as you will.”
“I believe it,” I muttered.
“Pardon?” he asked sharply, and I looked past him guiltily, trying to keep from grinning.
His eyes narrowed. “You won’t even take my apology seriously?”
“I am taking it seriously,” I insisted. “What do you want me to do? Lick your shoes clean for granting me mercy?”
A muscle next to his lips started to twitch. “You’re taking this with a great deal of levity, Miss Hasegawa. I would have thought you’d be a bit more serious.”
I didn’t want to smile, but watching Nobuki struggle to do something so human as apologize was too funny. “Okay, we both apologize to each other. Let’s forget about yesterday.”
Suspicion was clear in his chocolate brown eyes. “What brought on such a mood change?”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again.
Damn.
If I tried hard enough, I could still remember what Julian’s lips had tasted like against mine.
On the other hand, I should keep this to myself, right? Julian was his friend, and even if Nobuki had told him when we first met that Julian was free to do whatever he wanted to do with me…
“A friend took me out to dinner,” I said simply.
His lips curled up but it wasn’t a smile. Not a good-natured one. “It must’ve been one hell of a dinner if it took six whole hours to complete.”
“Oh.” I tried desperately to seem nonchalant. “Um. Yeah. I guess I did get back a little late.”
“A little late? I hardly think coming back to your hotel room after one on a workday qualifies as a little late, Miss Hasegawa.”
I bristled at his accusing tone. “You told me whatever I did outside of working hours was my own business, not yours.”
His fingers tightened into his upper arms. “Yes, but I—”
“And you were the one who said it was okay if Julian wanted to date me,” I said, resisting an urge to stab a finger in his direction. One did not stab fingers at their bosses, not if they wanted to keep their job.
“Julian?”
Instantly I wanted to turn right around and keep bashing my head against a convenient pillar until I knocked myself out for my innate stupidity. I had no intention of letting Nobuki know it was his friend I ended up going out with, but Julian’s name had popped out.
I girded my loins for a fight. “Yes. Julian.”
When in doubt, tell the truth.
Here’s hoping my dad’s advice didn’t land me in scalding hot water with Nobuki Miyano.
“When did I say it was okay for that bastard to date you?”
Crap. That had just popped out as well. I was supposed to have been sleeping. I needed a filter over my mouth. “In the car.”
He had me on the defensive and that made me angry. There was nothing wrong with my date with Julian.
It was my business and no one else’s.
Damn Nobuki for making me feel bad about this.
“In the car,” he repeated slowly. “Coming from the airport? When you were supposed to be asleep?”
I tossed my hair over my shoulders. “Well, you guys were talking kind of loud. And besides, the sounds of traffic made it hard to sleep.”
“I see.” His tone said the contrary. “So you heard me
tell Julian it was okay if he wanted to take you out, and you took that as permission?”
My patience was starting to fray. “I don’t need your permission to go out with anyone.”
Furthermore, I did not want to have another argument with Nobuki. It would be our second one in as many days, and if things turned out the way I thought they would, I would once again be reduced to a pile of frustrated tears while my boss looked at me with frost in his eyes.
When Nobuki first said I would be going to America with him, this was not what I had envisioned. I thought we could grow close, work like a team. I thought I would learn to understand him, but I had been naive.
Nobuki pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re right.”
Even that small admission seemed like a large victory for me and I steadied myself on the edge of a table. “Mr. Miyano…”
“Miss Hasegawa—”
I cut him off with a rather impudent wave of my hand. “Wait. Please. Let me finish. And when I’m done, you can go. How about that?”
He closed his mouth and nodded, taking a step back.
I took another deep breath, trying to relax.
“I don’t want to fight with you. I’m your secretary, but not even a week ago you said we were a team, didn’t you?”
He nodded again. That was good enough for me.
“We’re a team,” I said. “We’re here to represent Shokogan Publishing and make contacts with agents, writers, and other publishing companies. We want to open the English market to the Japanese audience and we also want to open the Japanese market to the English audience. We can’t do that effectively if we keep sniping at each other.”
At least he didn’t tell me to shut up.
Starting to feel encouraged, I held out my hand. “So let’s start over, okay? Let’s pretend like we’re workmates and even though you’re my boss, let’s pretend, if just for this week, that we’re more like colleagues. I’ll help you do what you need, and in exchange, you help me if I need it. I know your main purpose in coming here was to lure people in with your pretty face, but I mean, in the end, even Mr. Abe did your job, and he was just about the least attractive man on the planet.”
A One Night Affair (Kissing the Boss Book 2) Page 9