Fire and Ice (Ice 5)

“You really are crass, aren’t you?”

“And you’re a puritanical American. People need to use toilets, even if you want to pretend they don’t.”

She was so tempted to stomp over to the sofa and sit, waiting for him to leave just to prove a point, but her body wasn’t giving her that option.

“You know I hate you, right?” she said, turning her back on him.

“I hope so. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past three days.”

She ignored him, sliding the door shut behind her. Just once she wished she had a door to slam, loud. There’d been no time for her to even catch her breath since she’d arrived in Japan, no time to even think about whether she loved it here or hated it, but one thing was definite—she missed slamming doors.

Not that she made a habit of it in her normal life, but recently things had been far from normal. And she’d never been around someone as deliberately infuriating as Reno.

But why? Why was he trying to infuriate her? It made no sense.

The uber-toilet, however, made perfect sense, and for the time being she had more urgent matters to contend with. Maybe later she’d find out why he was trying to make her angry. And why she was jumping for the bait so readily.

Jilly was pissed off, just the way he needed her to be. As long as she was angry she wouldn’t be frightened, and as long as she wasn’t frightened he could handle things.

He should have known she wouldn’t scare easily. Wouldn’t run, as he’d told her to. For a supposed genius she was damned stupid when it came to her own safety. And when it came to him.

He’d seen her looking at him. And he’d known she wasn’t going to just walk away. Any more than he would, even if he’d had the chance. But he also wasn’t going to get any closer.

So pissing her off was the answer.

Except that she still looked at him. He must be some sort of adolescent rebellion on her part. And then, danger tended to heighten some people’s emotions, sexuality. Maybe that was why he couldn’t keep his hands off her.

It didn’t matter. He’d scared her enough that she’d stay put while he went in search of food and clothing for her. And answers. Those answers were the most important on his mind right now.

Not thinking about taking off her clothes. Not seeing if she tasted as good as she felt…or if he could make her come again, this time with him inside her.

Holy motherfucker, he was doing it again. He needed to get out of there, fast. Before he decided that he didn’t need to get out of there at all.

It was her second shower of the day, and no less wonderful. She stayed there until the water turned cold, then stayed longer, stepping out when it finally became icy. Hiromasa Shinoda’s spotless apartment came equipped with new toothbrushes still in their packages and what Jilly devoutly hoped was toothpaste and not minty hemorrhoid cream. She even stole Hiromasa’s comb to run through her wet hair, and his enveloping blue-and-white yukata to wrap around her body before emerging out into the studio apartment.

Reno was gone, as she’d expected him to be. There was food on the tiny counter in the kitchen, all unidentifiable, but something looked vaguely chiplike and crunchy, so she tore open the bag and ate it, accompanied by a bottle of what was euphemistically called Pocari Sweat. She was past the point of being picky—once she finished with them, she started hunting through the cupboards, coming up with tiny cans of coffee with names like Fire and Boss, strange-colored candies with gummy textures. It didn’t matter. She was so hungry she would have eaten the furniture.

Taking a bag of purple candy with her, she headed over to the computer, drawn like a magnet. She couldn’t read most of the diplomas on the wall, but the one from the Sorbonne was in Latin. Hiromasa Shinoda was a student with highest honors—Reno was probably the equivalent of a Japanese slacker. It made for an unlikely friendship. The paintings on the wall were Hiroshige wood-block prints of Mount Fuji—not a movie poster or video game in sight. There was a small photo in one of the bookcases—she went closer, finally getting a look at the mysterious Hiromasa.

He was tall, like Reno, if you could judge by the people standing next to him in the graduation photo. Short black hair, high cheekbones, narrow, clever face. The same full, luscious mouth that Reno had, the same nose. Was he some kind of cousin? He looked like an ordinary version of the exotic Reno….

She picked up the photo, staring at it. The stress of the past few days must have been even worse than she realized, to have it take so long to make the connection. The conservative-looking, soberly dressed young gentleman, the brilliant graduate of several universities, Hiromasa Shinoda, didn’t just look like Reno. He was Reno.

She hadn’t heard the door open. Suddenly he was there, plucking the photo out of her hand and putting it facedown on the low table. “He’s not your type,” Reno said.

She stared at him. The red tattooed tears, like drops of blood, on his high cheekbones, the cat’s-eye contacts that gave him a feral look, the three earrings in one ear and the long, flame-colored braid. “So you’ve been telling me for the past three days,” she said with utter calm.

She made him blink. It was the strongest response she’d been able to elicit from him in days, and she took her small triumphs where she could. “Did you bring me back some food?”

He glanced over at the tiny kitchen area. “It looks as if you’ve already devoured everything here. Including the dried octopus. I thought you didn’t do tentacles.”

“I couldn’t afford to be picky. And I’m still hungry.”

He just looked at her. Her blush was instinctive, uncontrollable. Okay, so he won that round. “I brought back food, since you seem to be obsessed with it.”

He was standing too close to her. She pulled the blue-and-white yukata more closely around her, and the slow smile on his face was just a little too close to a smirk, as if he could read her mind, her skittishness, and found them funny.

She was going to wipe that look off his face. “So, Hiromasa-san,” she said, her voice cool, “why do you keep this apartment?”