Fire and Ice

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  “You said you were going out to talk to your grandfather again. If you survive, you could bring some food back with you.”

  “Nice,” he said. “If they kill me you can make do with octopus. In the meantime the bathroom’s behind you.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I suppose he has one of those space-age toilets that do everything but cook dinner.”

  “It doesn’t work from across the room, Ji-chan. You have to go in and sit.”

  She glared at him. “And when I come out, you’ll be gone. What if you don’t come back?”

  “I’ll come back.”

  “What if they kill you?”

  “I’m hard to kill. Go and use the toilet, Ji-chan. You’re making me uncomfortable standing there with your knees together.”

  “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?”

  The smirk vanished, and his eyes narrowed. “You can call me Reno.”

  “Is that what your grandfather calls you?”

  “My grandfather calls me a disgrace to his name since I turned my back on the family business. And I don’t blame him—if I hadn’t left, he wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

  “What mess? Exactly what’s going on with your grandfather besides a little gang warfare?”

  “You have no idea,” he said, his voice like ice.

  “You could tell me.”

  For a moment she thought he’d say nothing. “My grandfather is old school. Very old school. And his family follows his code. He won’t touch drug dealing, the sex trade, arms trading. He’s part of the old Robin Hood ethic. And Hitomi and the men who are listening to him are part of the new wave.”

  “If they don’t deal drugs or prostitution or weapons, what is it they do? They sound pretty harmless to me.”

  “They’re bakuto. They mostly deal with gambling, protection, counterfeit luxury goods. Mostly soft crimes that are committed without force. Unfortunately, they don?
??t bring in the kind of money and power that the gurentai could give them.”

  “Gurentai?”

  “More like your American mafia.”

  “And Hitomi is part of that?”

  “It seems like it. And I don’t know how far it goes. I never would have thought Kobayashi would turn his back on the old man.” He moved over to the window, looking out into the darkness. “Until I find out, there’s nothing I can do but keep you here. No matter how much I want to get rid of you, I can’t risk it,” he said, his voice flat. “I’ve put up with you for too long to fail now.”

  “What about my parents? My sister? They don’t think I’m dead, do they? I don’t want to put them through that kind of grief. And yes, as hard as it is for you to believe, my death will upset my family. Not everyone finds me a royal pain in the ass.” She paused, thinking about it. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know anyone who considers me a royal pain in the ass except you. Why?”

  “They haven’t been trapped with you for three days,” he said, turning his back on her and heading into the kitchen area. “Maybe everyone else has only seen your best side. If you’ve lived your life without annoying anyone, then you must be very boring.”

  “You don’t find me boring,” she said, watching him.

  He didn’t turn back, concentrating on opening the carton. “Life would be easier if I did,” he muttered.

  Okay, that was interesting. Had she somehow managed to get past his cool, heartless soul? Now he was reminding her of something out of Kingdom Hearts, her favorite video game, though she couldn’t remember who.

  But he was no Disney-anime cross, and she needed to remember that. He was a man—granted, a hot one—but more trouble than he was worth. Besides, Summer would kill her.

  “So you brought me food?” Anything was better than thinking about something she could never, should never, have.

  “You’re obsessed. The sashimi is for me—I wouldn’t want to waste it on an inexperienced gaijin. I brought you oyakudon and miso soup. The Japanese version of macaroni and cheese and chicken soup.”

  “You think I need comfort food?”

  He turned his head to look at her. “I’m just trying to keep you quiet and docile while I figure out what to do next.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but the price of inner peace comes a little higher than macaroni and cheese.”

  “I don’t give a shit about your inner peace—it’s your silence I’m looking forward to.” He turned back, then jumped a bit, as if he hadn’t realized how close she was. He was skittish, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or bad. It depended what was making him nervy. The danger? Or her?

  She got out of his way, not wanting to risk brushing up against him, not after last night, and he headed to the computer. “Help yourself,” he said. “I need to check a few things.”

  “Are you sure that’s safe? Someone can hack into your IP address and find where we are if they’re good enough.”

  “No, they can’t. I know my way around computers.” It was a simple statement, one she believed, so she busied herself with the food he’d brought. Enough for both of them. Did he expect her to serve him like a good Japanese hausfrau, or whatever you’d call it in Japan? If so, he was going to wait a long time.

  He was right, though. The hot miso soup was like a mother’s calming touch, not that Lianne had been much for nurturing, but the warmth spread through Jilly’s body like a shot of whiskey.

  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.

  He rolled over on his side, turning away from her, but the scent of almonds on his own skin was almost enough to get him to go shower again, this time with dish soap. But he didn’t need to. The day that he couldn’t control his need for sex was the day he was in big trouble. He could lie a few feet from Ji-chan and forget all about her. Or die trying.

  She was never going to get used to sleeping on a futon, Jilly decided as she slowly opened her eyes to the shadowy apartment. Her entire body hurt, though part of that might be from the endless sprint away from the yakuza compound. She pushed up from the mattress, then realized her robe had come apart, revealing far too much of her breasts. She yanked it together quickly, peering around the darkened apartment for signs of life. Had Reno left her once more?