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As his hand clasps mine, I feel the rough calluses rubbing against my smooth palm. The sensation travels straight to my clit. How would it feel if his fingers and tongue followed the same path? Lord, I need a fan. The handshake is over almost before it begins.
Cade crosses his arms and rests against the counter. “How did you learn Kyushu Jutsu?”
I lick my lips. The muscles in his biceps ripple as he adjusts his weight. The man is deadly. Am I staring? I blink to regain my focus. What did he ask? Right, Kyushu Jutsu. “My father’s gardener.”
The petite woman tended to my deceased mother’s rose garden as if it were her life’s work. She was small and full of ancient knowledge, and she taught me about healing herbs and a few not so helpful potions.
“What?” Cade’s eyebrows are arched nearly to his hairline.
I chuckle. “That’s what my father would say if he knew.”
“How does that even happen?”
“Well.” I pause and lean against the surface across from him. “It’s kind of a long story.”
***
Cade
“Go ahead. I don’t have plans for the evening, and you’ve aroused my interest.” Lord, did I just say aroused? She doesn’t arouse me. She can’t. I like submissive women–women who don’t argue and fight back.
Don’t I? Sure, none of them held my interest for long, but that’s not the point.
So why is it that I can’t get her out of my mind? I can’t keep a potted plant alive, and she learned martial arts from a gardener. The difference between our pasts couldn’t be any more evident. What would she do if I asked her out? That’s easy. She’d look at you like you were an idiot.
Shit. I don’t have any business thinking about her. We’re co-workers and nothing else. No matter how soft her skin feels or how intoxicating the faint scent of coconut that lingers whenever she passes by is to my dick. Fuck. She makes me wish for sunsets on a deserted beach.
My cell phone vibrates, and I pull it out. Lucas Foster. I frown and tap ‘Ignore.’
“Do you need to get that?”
I shake my head and slide the phone back into my pocket. “No, go ahead.” I’ve been avoiding this call for two years. I’m no more prepared to take it today than I was back then.
“Are you sure? I don’t want to bore you.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Go ahead.” I’m not going to lie–I want to know how a woman who wears designer clothing to a street fight knows martial arts.
“Right after I was born, my mother died.”
“Shit. I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to.” I hate it when people dig into my past. She’s going to be pissed I’m sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong.
She shakes her head, causing a wave of hair to break free from behind her ear. After she pushes it back, she says, “It’s okay. I never knew her other than through photographs or stories told by family. I do look like her, though.”
“She must have been a beautiful woman.” My heart skips a beat. The words are out, and into the universe, before I can stop them, and there’s no way to get them back.
“Thank you.” She continues as if my words didn’t register. Or she doesn’t care if I find her attractive or not. “My father was already into the political scene, and I had two older brothers. I was the only female in a household of overbearing men. I’m not saying I wasn’t loved because I was. It’s more like I was loved too much. Everyone treated me like I was a prized possession that belonged inside a China cabinet.”
She’s small and perfect, so I understand their reasoning. But I don’t think she’d appreciate me saying it. If she were mine and some prick pushed her against the wall and molested her, I’d beat the fuck out of him. “That must have been hard to deal with.”
“Yes, it was. I went to a private school and wasn’t allowed to have friends stay over. No jumping in muddy puddles or throwing snowballs. I could play dress up and be on my father’s arm at fundraisers and charity events, but that was about it.”
“What about your brothers?” I never knew my father, and my mother ended up working herself into an early grave, leaving me to fend for myself. But I’d been able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. Would the opposite have been any less destructive?
“They were big, strong boys, so they could do all those things.”
“Did you resent it?”
She pauses for several seconds. “Not really. It was the only thing I knew, and they were worried something would happen to me. I guess if I had to call it something, I would say it was unfair. Ms. Lue felt the same. She was afraid being sheltered would end up making me a target for kidnappers or, at the very least, bullies. She tended to have the flare for the dramatic and convinced my father I needed to learn self-defense, which didn’t exactly reduce his paranoia that something would happen to me.”
