The other dish was made of chicken, rice and egg, bland and lovely. She glanced over at him while she shoveled the food into her mouth, but he seemed intent on the screen, totally oblivious to her.
For the first time she could watch him, really watch him. With the studied swagger, the mocking grin vanishing, the glittering eyes focused on something else, she could see glimpses of the somber young man in the photo. The red teardrops still danced across his high cheekbones, and his eyelashes were still absurdly long, but without the protective, outrageous persona he suddenly looked just a little bit like Hiromasa Shinoda.
It should have wiped out any last lingering trace of fantasy. There was no Reno, there was simply a bright young man with a bizarre and compelling protective shell wrapped around him. And she wondered what he would do if she untied the cotton robe.
He swiveled his head to look at her then, and his eyes narrowed. “Seen enough?” he drawled.
She didn’t even blink. “Why? Are you planning on showing me more?”
“I’m trying to save your life here. You might at least stop trying to distract me,” he growled, turning back to the computer screen and typing.
“Am I distracting you?” she said sweetly. “Tough shit. I don’t suppose you have any clean clothes that might fit me.”
“I’m making arrangements.”
“You mean, there’s someone we can trust who’s not out to kill us?”
“Someone I can trust. I don’t think I’d risk leaving you alone with him. Kyo makes me seem like a pussycat.”
“Kyo?”
“Five feet two inches of pure nastiness. Unfortunately he’s the only person who’s good enough to keep out of the way of Hitomi’s spies. I can’t guarantee you’ll like what he comes up with, but at least you’ll be decently covered.”
“Lovely,” she said, sarcastic. “And in the meantime?”
“In the meantime, try to get some sleep. We’re not going anywhere for a while.”
“Sleep where?”
He glanced up at her. The cut on his cheekbone looked nasty, and she wondered if it would leave a scar. It would only make him even hotter, damn it. “You can open the futon. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to sleep. I’m not going to touch you again.”
The memory of the previous night came flooding back, his hands between her legs, her body arching in spasms of hot, breathless release. “Not if you want to keep your hands,” she said, calm.
He turned away, and she had no idea whether he believed her. In the end it didn’t matter. Whether she wanted him to or not, he wasn’t going to touch her again. And she was grateful. She didn’t want him touching her, didn’t want him kissing her, didn’t want anything at all from him except to get away.
And the sooner she believed that, the better off she’d be.
11
Reno pushed away from the computer, beyond frustrated. He had a headache—he’d taken out his contact lenses hours ago, but even that didn’t help. Hours on the computer with little or no sleep wasn’t doing him any good, and it wasn’t bringing him any closer to the answers he was seeking. Who the hell was Hitomi-san? Was he from another gang, like the all-powerful Yamaguchi-gumi family, or was he working on his own, trying to take control of an already established family? There was no record of him to be found, even through the various side alleyways of the Internet that he knew so well.
He looked over at the futon. She was asleep, her short streaky hair tumbled around her face, and he leaned back in the chair, watching her while she slept.
She wasn’t his type—apart from the fact that every female under the age of fifty was his type. She was gaijin, she was American, she was as tall as he was and she was trouble. He had very few rules in his life, but one was never to sleep with anyone who came with strings attached. Ji-chan was so tied up in his family she was practically an exercise in bondage.
And that was not what he wanted to be thinking of right now, when he was trying to keep his mind off his dick. She looked almost innocent as she slept, not the sharp-tongued pain in the ass he knew her to be. But then, he wouldn’t be as drawn to someone so vulnerable. He kept away from the innocent and the needy at all times. It only led to trouble.
And that was exactly what Ji-chan was. Nothing but trouble of the most basic sort. He’d done his best to make sure he’d rid her of any lingering, childish fantasies about him. It was a lot better, safer, that way.
But now that she was over him he had to work on getting over her. Which might be even harder to do.
H
e was tired, so bone-tired he could fall asleep in the chair. Which is just what he needed to do. It didn’t matter that she looked like she belonged on his futon. It didn’t matter that there was plenty of room for him, too, if he slept close to her. She’d used his almond-scented soap, and the smell of it on her skin was making him crazy. If it weren’t dead winter, he’d open a window.
A cold shower might help. Then he could stretch out on the kitchen floor, far enough away from her to be safe. He’d slept in worse places, and being uncomfortable would be good for him. He could look at her, a few feet away, and resent her.
The problem was, he realized half an hour later as he tried to get comfortable on the tatami mat, that now he smelled like almond soap, as well. And just to make his torture complete, this was the night she decided to toss about in her sleep, her long, bare legs kicking out from his plain cotton robe, the neckline pulling away, showing too much of the soft curve of her breast. And when she turned her back it was even worse. The nape of her neck had to be the hottest thing he’d ever seen, vulnerable, the spiky blond hair curling slightly above it. There was a reason geisha wore their kimono pulled down slightly in the back. The delicate nape of a neck could be a more powerful turn-on than a spread shot in Penthouse, or so his grandfather had always told him. And damn if the old man wasn’t right.