His Revenge Baby: 50 Loving States, Washington Read online

  She did not understand. Couldn’t possibly fathom the amount of money at stake in this battle. Yet her solution…it wiggled something loose in the back of his mind. An alternative to a takeover that No had never before considered.

  “I don’t know,” he answered, speaking his first fully undiluted truth of the night.

  “Okay, well why don’t you sleep on it?” she suggested, her own voice sleepy. “You might wake up with a few ideas.”

  A few ideas. More ideas like this one? Staying beyond his usual hour? Breaking more rules in one week than he’d done in an entire year? Sleeping here overnight would be a bad idea. He’d leave in an hour. Less than that, he decided as his eyes closed under her soft touch. In fact, as soon as she was asleep, as soon she was done stroking his hair, he’d be on his way.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Mr. Nakamura was still in bed with her when Lilli woke up in the middle of the night with the need to pee. She was surprised to find him there, breathing steadily beneath her hand. They must have both fallen asleep while she stroked his hair. And wow, she’d thought he’d been gorgeous while sitting upright and cold.

  Now he was beautiful. A work of fine art underneath the city lights, and suddenly she understood why painters liked to draw people in sleep.

  Still, finding him here like this was certainly a surprise given how like a “wary predator” he’d seemed as he climbed into bed with her. As if this simple act were so far outside his comfort zone, the piece of furniture might as well have been located in Timbuktu.

  The truth was, it was way outside her comfort zone, too. Love hurts. Relationships usually ended badly for Lilli. That’s what her parents taught her early in life, and the lesson had stuck with her long after her mother kicked her out.

  She’d had a few anemic relationships in her early twenties. A few overnights. But never anything that had involved the kind of sex she’d had with Mr. Nakamura. Never anything that made her want to fall asleep stroking someone’s hair.

  And try as she might to suppress it, her concern switch was obviously flipped all the way on. You could cover up the nurse with Osaka Charm, but apparently you could never make her completely disappear.

  Thank goodness he’d been able to get what was bothering him off his chest, without giving her too many details. She still didn’t know exactly why he’d been so agitated when he first arrived, but he looked so peaceful now. And so damn beautiful…if not for the fact that she really did have to pee, she might have stayed there staring at him forever…

  Lilli took care not to wake him as she snuck into the bathroom and took a spin on the apartment’s state of the art toilet. Unlike the one in her Osaka Charm share apartment, which she didn’t have enough kanji knowledge to operate properly, this one was super-intuitive. Warming as soon as she sat down, and quietly flushing when she stood up.

  However, she blinked when she stood and noticed…she could actually read the kanji imprinted across the toilet, but it didn’t make any sense. If she was reading it correctly, it consisted of the characters for go…and the first couple of characters she’d seen on Norio’s short Wikipedia entry when she’d researched him after their first interview. So that would make the word on top of the toilet: Go…No…

  But what did it mean?

  Shaking her head, she turned off the light in the bathroom and crept back into the bedroom. However, she must not have moved quietly enough because when she returned to the room, Norio was sitting up in bed.

  And hell if he wasn’t all things cute and adorable with his usually impeccable hair all mussed up and his eyes half hooded with sleep.

  “Hey Mr. Nakamura,” she said with more affection than she really should be allowing herself to feel. “You okay?”

  He looked around in a seeming daze.

  “Should I…text Miyuki?” She hated the thought of bothering the seemingly over-worked assistant at—she glanced at the clock—oh Jesus, two in the morning! But she’d barely had enough Japanese to read what was on the toilet, much less call a cab for a Japanese billionaire who seemed to value discretion above just about everything else.

  He mumbled something in Japanese.

  “Excuse me,” she said, kneeling on the bed so she could hear him better.

  “Samui…”

  Wait, that was one of her nursing words. She racked her brain to remember. Fever? Stomach? No—cold! He was cold.

  “You’re cold,” she said, already back in full nurse mode as she went to pull the blanket back over him.

  But before she could complete the action, he grabbed a hold of her, causing her to eep! a little as he settled back into the bed with her. Not so much cuddling as collapsing his body over hers, a “hi, nice to meet you” erection settling into the small of her back.

  “You call me No.”

  “What?” she asked.

  “No. My name is No, not Mr. Nakamura.”

  It took her a few sleepy moments to understand… “So you don’t want me to call you Mr. Nakamura, like Miyuki does?”

  “You not Miyuki,” he mumbled. “No…that’s what you call me.”

  Okay, she thought. It sounded as if he was asking her to call him No. A nickname that reminded her of that robotics billionaire back in America, Go Gutierrez. The one who’d made all those headlines a few months ago.

  Her mind stopped. Go… No… Norio was the head of RoTeku at Nakamura Worldwide.

  “Hey, No…” she started. “The friend you were mentioning earlier…?”

  But then she stopped, realizing it was probably better not to ask, not to know. For his sake and hers.

  And in what seemed like mere seconds later, he was breathing evenly again. And sound asleep.

  Okay…this was definitely not where she expected her late night pee journey to end up, but okay. She could handle being covered up by an incredibly beautiful man instead of a blanket. One whose sleeping hard-on was giving her all sorts of ideas it was better off not to have in the middle of night.

  Somehow she managed to fall asleep.

  But when she woke up, she was alone in the bed and Norio was nowhere to be seen.

  Had it all been a dream? A weird but erotic dream?

  Samui.

  Yes, the bed felt really samui now that he was gone, leaving her alone in the apartment.

  At least she thought she was alone. But that theory got all the way shut down when she came out of the bedroom to the smell of cooking food. She found Miyuki in the apartment kitchen, cracking eggs into a frying pan.

  “Ohayo, Ana-san!” Miyuki called out a casual Japanese good morning with her usual cheer when she spotted Lilli in the doorway. “I have your piru on table.”

  She nodded toward the kitchen’s small glass table where, just as promised, Lilli found a new packet of her Western-brand birth control next to a thoughtfully placed glass of water.

  Whoa, she thought.

  “If it is okay, you can take after I finish breakfast, okay?” Miyuki said, glancing over her shoulder at the stove.

  “Sure,” Lilli answered, punching one pill out of the foil seal. “But why are you making me breakfast?”

  “You say you do not cook, so I make breakfast, hai?”

  “Oh, my gosh, Miyuki! You totally did not have to do that!” Lilli exclaimed. “I was planning to go to the mall to buy a box of cereal or something.”

  “It is no problem,” Miyuki answered, flashing Lilli the victory sign, which she had discovered Japanese women often use to mean everything from “Cheese!” to “no worries.”

  “But doesn’t Mr. Nakamura need you back at the office?”

  Miyuki gave her puzzled smile, as if Lilli should already know the answer to that question. “Riyu-san is for his office, I am for his personal. And now I am for you, too.”

  “Okay, so you’re just going to stay with me the entire time he’s out of town?” Lilli asked.

  “No,” Miyuki answered, giggling. “I will go with him. Make sure you and him have what you need.” She stoppe
d, frowning. “But if you like cereal, I will make sure hotel has.”

  Lilli shook her head, feeling very confused. “I don’t understand. What hotel?”

  Now it was Miyuki’s turn to look confused. “He did not tell you? I thought…”

  “Tell me what?” she asked.

  Now for the very first time, Lilli saw Miyuki blush. “I am sorry, Ana-san. When I come here this morning with suit, Mr. Nakamura tell me make sure you are packed and have good breakfast before you join him at Kansai Airport.”

  Lilli blinked at her, really not understanding.

  “Singapore,” Miyuki clarified. “He would like for you come with.”

  “Oh!” Lilli said, finally realizing No wanted her to travel with him to Singapore.

  At first her heart lit up at the possibility, but then she remembered that a passport was required to travel. A real one like the one Lilliana Tucker possessed, but Ana Granger did not.

  “I’m not sure I can come. You see my passport…” Lilli said, scrambling for a legitimate excuse for why Ana Granger didn’t have a passport. “…my visa is kind of, sort of, expired…” she started.

  “Yes, that is common problem for Osaka Charm girl…” Miyuki answered with a gentle smile. “I hope you don’t mind, but when I didn’t find your passport during move, I take some care of thing for you…”

  A few hours later, Lilli came to be walking through the door of a very posh lounge at the Kansai International Airport with Miyuki by her side.

  She’d once read this airport was among the most expensive in the world at which to land a private plane. But here was Norio Nakamura, at the bar, drinking a glass of what she’d later find out was his preferred Japanese whisky, as if hanging out at private airport lounge bars was a long-held past time.

  And here she was, wearing a pair of red-bottomed heels and a dress she was fairly certain cost more than she used to get paid in a whole month at the Osaka International School. And thanks to Miyuki, Lilli—or rather Ana—had a new American passport in her Hermès bag.

  Upon seeing the two women, Mr. Nakamura stood. Hands going to his side as he and Miyuki exchanges bows. Miyuki then launched into a stream of Japanese, at the end of which it seemed to be decided that she would head out to the plane before them.

  “I will make sure plane is ready,” she explained to Lilli with another bow. “You and Mr. Nakamura can have drink here, okay?”

  “Sure…” Lilli answered, noticing that the lounge’s bartender had magically appeared behind the bar and seemed to be waiting for her order.

  She requested a Midori Sour, a drink she’d happily discovered during her time in Japan. And she chose to watch the bartender throw together the green concoction instead of talking to the man who had returned to his seat beside her.

  The awkwardness, it would seem, was back and she had no idea what to say to him after last night. But eventually the bartender finished with her cocktail and set it down in front of her. He must have understood that despite their lack of interaction, she was drinking on Mr. Nakamura’s dime, because after a polite smile and presentation wave, he left to serve a businessman at the other end of the bar without asking her to pay for the drink.

  “Hi,” she said after taking a fortifying sip of the deliciously sweet drink.

  “Hello,” he answered in more formal English with a small bow of his head.

  He was so reserved now, she noticed, and very removed. She lowered her voice to ask, “So last night. You asked me to call you ‘No.’ Was that some kind of weird post-ramen dream or did that really happen?”

  And that’s when a small miracle occurred. A smile spread across Norio’s face, taking it from handsome to beautiful in less than a second. “Chigau, Ana-san,” he answered. “That was not a ramen dream. In public, Mr. Nakamura. In private...”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, just held her gaze, his eyes intent on hers. Letting her know without touching how different “in private” would be for them from now on…

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lilli wasn’t actually an ESL teacher, but she had met plenty of them at her school and even more at the local gaijin bar she sometimes went to with her OIS teacher friends. There had been one guy, round and heavy-lidded with that permanently doped-out look some Americans get when they smoke too much weed—or in the case of Japan—hash.

  His life plan, he’d told her over separately bought Asahis, was working one year in Japan, then living two years in Thailand. He’d done this over and over again during his twenties, and was now into his early thirties. He’d maybe even keep the cycle going into his forties if he ever found a Japanese girl (his preferred nationality for dating) who wanted to live that way with him. But so far, he’d complained, no girl he’d brought with him to Thailand had lasted beyond the first year of having nothing to do but complete freedom.

  Lilli, who loved her job and felt called to nursing, tried to comprehend his way of thinking. Did Japan feel way too fast compared to the slowness of Thailand? she’d asked him.

  “Actually, it’s the opposite,” he’d claimed. “The two years in Thailand always go by fast. Blip, and they’re gone. But the year in Japan. It drags on and on. Like serving out a jail sentence.”

  Lilli had laughed, as you do, but she still hadn’t understood. Not really.

  Not until her time with No. One night turned into a week-long business trip to Singapore, which turned into a few short weeks at home with more trips thrown in. Lilli Tucker had only ever traveled to Canada, and then to Japan in order to help her brother whose Japanese wife had died of cancer. But Ana Granger got to travel all over the Eastern Hemisphere with her Japanese lover. A conference in Australia, a special meeting in Hong Kong, division check-in trips to Korea and Taiwan. It became all too easy for Lilli to lose count of the weeks, despite having little to do except primp and have sex.

  She became lost in a world of expensive hotel rooms and spa appointments. Soon grew accustomed to a life of waking up to take her birth control pill under Miyuki’s supervision, eating, then spending the day sleeping off what No and she had done the night before. In fact, the only time the weeks didn’t seem to fly by was during her week long breaks for periods, and getting primped for the next round of sex and hotel rooms.

  It was all so heady, so unlike any life Lilli had ever known, or even imagined she could know when she moved to Japan. But forgetting about her old life, and the people she was supposedly doing this for, became all too easy over the next few months. Before she knew it, five and a half months had flown by at the speed of light.

  And one morning, she found herself sitting across from No on the love flat’s queen sized bed. Fucking herself with a toy he’d bought for her on their last trip to Taiwan. Watching him watch her as she moved the toy’s pink bulb between her legs. With no embarrassment whatsoever.

  It didn’t take long to prepare herself to sheath him. They’d been on a period break, and they tended to fuck like beasts when she came off of those. This morning they’d both woken early, their bodies in mutual agreement. And when she brought out his toy gift, he’d said, “Keep going.”

  So she did. But only to the point where she could feel herself on the edge of coming. She knew better than that, had been taught better than that. So before a mechanized orgasm overtook her, she put the toy aside and crawled to No on her hands and knees.

  He was already fully erect just from watching her, but she took him in her mouth anyway. Head down, ass up, knowing how much he liked the view when she serviced him like this.

  The familiar heaviness of his hand came down on the back of her neck soon after she went to work, stroking and sucking. But she stopped when the pre-cum started dribbling out onto her tongue, knowing how he preferred to watch her come before he did.

  With slow, deliberate stretches, she reached across to the nightstand… pushed him back into a fully prone position so she could sheath him with the condom she’d pulled out of the drawer.

  Then and only then did she
allow herself to climb on top of him and sink down with a heavy sigh.

  Fucking him this way made her feel sorry for every other girl on earth. To come while he watched were his only directives. And she’d found over the past several months that the harder she came, the more it seemed to please him.

  If only every woman had such a generous lover, she thought to herself as she braced both hands on his chest and began to move.

  What was really impressive to her was how steady his gaze stayed, even when she started going crazy on top of him, scratching at his chest as an orgasm overtook her.

  The only surprise came at the crest. And it shouldn’t have surprised her, because he did it every time. Still… there was something about the sight of his hands reaching under the tank top she’d slept in. His long fingers seizing onto her nipples and twisting… pushing her over the edge with the cold remove of a hawk finishing its prey.

  In fact, No continued to watch her with his dark predator stare, as she let out a keening cry, the orgasm intertwined with the pain as it ripped through her. And he didn’t let her nipples go until she was panting in the wake of another truly intense climax.

  “Now you, please,” she murmured, looking down at him in the morning light.

  With an amused look, he gripped her around the stem of her neck and pulled her down to his level. Then he tilted his head. Waiting.

  She had learned the meaning of this action, too, and she happily granted his silent request. Her mouth found his, taking what she wanted because she knew by now, it was what he wanted, too. She’d been so inexperienced five months ago, but now…well, it was difficult to explain. But if someone walked into this bedroom and told her she wasn’t the sexiest woman on earth, she’d find it hard to believe because No had so thoroughly convinced her otherwise.

  She had self-esteem issues, she knew this, thanks to her college therapist. In fact she had so many, she’d warned Lilli that she might have a difficult time maintaining healthy boundaries in her personal relationships.