And, Jesus, there’d been a good reason I’d been wearing panties. Was I leaving wet stains on the cushion now?
Someone walked past our room. My hand shot out over Donovan’s forearm and pushed it below the table, into his lap. “But we’re in public. So you can put them in your pocket and return them to me later.”
“Yes,” he said, with a victorious smirk. “I can put them in my pocket.” He knelt higher so he could stuff them in his pants pocket then fell back on his feet.
I had a pretty good feeling I was never seeing that pair of underwear again.
With my panties no longer a source of distraction, I noticed something new had been placed on the table since I’d been in the restroom—a silver platter with a lid. Next to it was a pair of metal tongs.
I nodded toward the dish. “What’s that?”
He took off the lid and steam rushed out. Several towels were rolled up in a pile inside. With the tongs, he picked up a rolled towel and set it on the table long enough to replace the lid. “It’s customary to wash our hands before the meal.”
He picked up the towel and unrolled it, bouncing it from hand to hand a few times until it cooled enough to hold. Then he gestured for me to hold out my hands toward him. Carefully and attentively, he cleaned between each of my fingers and washed my palms and the backs of my hands.
It was strangely erotic and sensual, but it was also intimate. Tender, even. And so while it made my thighs clench and my blood rush hot, it also made my breath stick in my chest. My head felt dizzy.
The moment was too heavy. Like a weightlifter trying to hold a barbell that’s too weighted, I couldn’t hold it without it pressing down on my chest. Without it crushing down on my heart. Without it meaning something that it wasn’t supposed to mean.
I giggled, trying to lighten the mood. “You’re washing my panties off my hands.”
“Such a shame.” His tone remained thick and humorless, and instead of letting the moment ease, he bore into me with a gaze so intense, it carried its own gravity.
Was he like this with everyone? Just sex. No relationships. Could he really look at a person—look at me—and not intend the burden that was clearly in his stare? Could he really witness this extreme force between us and say it didn’t connect us in any way except sexually?
Was it only me who felt the weight at all?
He finished with my hands and moved to his own then dumped the towel on an empty plate that seemed to be for discarded linens. He poured himself some sake, and we each drank in silence.
I took the moment to knock myself out of the stupid trance I’d been in.
Of course it was only me who was feeling these things. That was why he’d given me the speech about no relationships in the first place. And, in all honesty, I wouldn’t even be thinking along these lines if he hadn’t yelled at me earlier about it and put the idea in my head.
Just sex. Got it. I was all for it. I wasn’t into anything more than that myself. Bring the waitress back. I could order this without help, no menu required—just sex. No adornments, no side dishes, no appetizers. Just plain sex.
What else would I want with a man like Donovan anyway? Overnights? Romance? Marriage?
I almost laughed at the idea.
No. There were men who were intended for futures, and there were men who were intended for filth. Donovan was intended for filth, and he was wise to lay it out from the beginning.
I tried not to think about the fact that he’d had a fiancée once upon a time. Because what did it mean Donovan was intended for then?
In all honesty, it probably wasn’t that simple, and I needed to accept that. Otherwise I’d kill myself wondering if what it really meant was that he just wasn’t intended for me.
Chapter 24
When the waitress returned, she brought someone else with her to help carry the trays of food. Together, the two servers placed dishes of soup and sushi and tempura and fish on the table. Afterward, they stood back with their hands in front of them and seemed to wait for something. For what, I didn’t know.
Maybe we were supposed to taste our food before they left? Tell them everything was all good or something.
I looked to Donovan for guidance.
He brought his hands to his lap, and I mirrored him instinctively. “In Japanese culture,” he said, “before we start eating, we say itadakimasu.”
He’d only said it one time, but he looked at me expectantly.
I gave him my you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me look. “I can’t say that. What did you say? Say it again. Slower.”
He started to answer and then seemed to have another idea. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a marker from an inner pocket and took off the lid with his teeth—another super sexy move.
“Give me your hand,” he said around the lid, though he needn’t have said anything because he’d already tugged it over to him and had started writing.
“You just happen to have a Sharpie in your pocket? Of course you do. Did I mention you were a workaholic? Also, this is never coming off.” Thank god we were coming on November, and I could get away with wearing long sleeves. Sharpie was impossible to wash off as it was, and as I stared at his neat print handwriting on my skin, I wasn’t sure I was planning to try that hard.
“It-a-dak-i-ma-su,” I read slowly from my arm when he was done. It came out better than I’d thought it would on the first try, which wasn’t saying much. I glanced up and found him trying to hide a grin. His eyes twinkled, though, and he couldn’t hide that. “You’re laughing at me.”
“No, you did pretty good. It was cute.” He said the word cute as though he’d never had a reason to say it before.
I rolled my eyes. Cute was not what I wanted him to think of when he thought of me. “What does it mean?”
“It means, ‘I receive this food’. You’re thanking the preparers for their work, telling them you appreciate what they’ve done for you.”
“Oh!” I turned to the waitress and her helper who were still standing in a bowed position, politely waiting to be dismissed. “Itadakimasu,” I told them.
They smiled and nodded.
Donovan followed up with a whole bunch of Japanese words that were not itadakimasu and also seemed to be somewhat instructive in tone. When he’d finished speaking, they bowed and exited the room, shutting the sliding doors as they left.
They shut the doors.
We were alone.
And I wasn’t wearing panties.
“What did you say to her?” I asked, pretending to be more interested in reaching for the miso.
“I told her to shut the shoji on the way out. And not to return until I’d opened it myself.”
“Who knew that dining was such a private event for you.” I picked up the bowl and blew across the top.
“It’s not the dining that I was concerned about keeping private.”
My stomach did a flip-flop. Thank goodness I hadn’t actually sipped the soup yet because I might have swallowed wrong.
Donovan chuckled, as if he could interpret my every thought when I couldn’t understand them myself. I drank from the miso and put the bowl down, and after I did, he was waiting with a piece of sushi that he’d dipped in soy sauce and was now holding out to me between chopsticks.