Chapter 14
Ryosuke
Back to playing with fire.
Yasu was pissed, but I couldn’t leave it this time. I needed everyone on the same page if this was all going to work out in the end. Pushing his buttons was stupid, and when his dick had given him away? Yeah, I should have just let him go. But I was too damn stupid for that shit.
What I wasn’t expecting was the pissed-off woman with the huge ass butcher’s knife to answer the door.
She glared at me as I backed away slowly.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Maybe I’d gotten the wrong place, but I’d sworn this was the door that Yasu had gone to.
The knife sliced through the air, causing me to jump back. I’d never had someone come after me with a weapon before, and this woman looked like she was ready to kill.
“Would you knock it off, Reiko?”
Well, at least that voice was familiar.
Yasu ducked out from behind the woman, but he didn’t seem any more friendly. The only thing missing was the giant ass kitchen utensil. The pair had to be related in some way because they were so similar it wasn’t even funny.
“Yasu,” I rushed as soon as I saw him, praying it was enough to get this crazy lady to leave me alone.
He rolled his eyes, laying his hands on her shoulders turning her back toward the entrance of the apartment. “Would you go inside? I’ve got this handled. You’re going to have to get used to him as well.”
That had my interest, but I didn’t press as I waited for Yasu to come back to talk to me.
When he did, he closed the door behind him, leaning against it as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“Why did you follow me?”
It was a simple enough question that I didn’t have an answer to. Did I tell him that I couldn’t leave things the way we’d left them in the alley? That I’d wanted to know why he’d gotten hard for me. Would he even tell me if I pressed him about it?
“You’re angry.” Not that stating the obvious would help.
“Nah, what gave you that impression?”
I motioned to the front door. “The woman with the weapon who greeted me.”
I wasn’t expecting the snicker.
It was the first time I’d gotten a real reaction of humor out of Yasu, and it did something funny to me. Warmth spread through my limbs, I wanted to do it again. To make him laugh, make him like me, as I’d managed with everyone else.
“Reiko.”
The name didn’t ring a bell, so I just sort of tilted my head staring at him. Yasu shook his head and laughed again. “For someone who seemed to do so much research about the band, you really should know who Reiko is.”
I’d seen the name in the files a few times, but it still didn’t mean I knew her significance.
“Please tell me.”
He sighed heavily, carding his fingers through his hair letting out a curse.
“I guess it makes sense that the label would downplay her. They have since day one. Without her, this band would be nothing. Toshi would have driven us into the ground ages ago.”
Holy shit. Yasu was opening up to me.
“Is she, like... your wife or something?” That didn’t feel right, and the way Yasu’s face screwed up at the question meant that I’d hit the nail on the head, that I was wrong about that.
“My sister. My older sister at that. She’s believed in us since the very beginning. Stupid politics wouldn’t let us bring her on as our manager, so we got Toshi instead. She keeps him in line.”
I looked at the door. “Does she come after him with knives as well?”
That earned me another laugh.
It was music to my ears—maybe I’d finally done something right. I wanted to keep winning those small things, like laughter from him. It made little zings of happiness spread through my limbs and it was an addictive feeling.
“No, but it might be helpful. He might give a little more to our demands.”
Now it was my turn to laugh.
From what I could see from the outside, the band had its shit together.
They got some of the best venues and photoshoots.
I’d always wondered how they’d swung that since Toshi had managed Tokyo Roadtrip as well, and we’d never gotten half of those things.
Maybe it was all thanks to Reiko. We hadn’t had a secret weapon like that in our back pockets.
“Can we talk, please?” Maybe if I came across as more gentle and understanding, he’d be more inclined to listen.
Yasu looked between me and the front door a few times, probably wondering if his sister would come out trying to attack me again. When it became more obvious that it wasn’t going to happen, he grabbed my arm and dragged me inside.
I quickly kicked off my shoes in the entryway as he led me through the apartment.
It was a lot nicer than I thought it would be.
There was a couch and a table in the living room that sat in front of a television that wasn’t all that big.
There wasn’t much in the way of decor, but it seemed like it fit Yasu and his personality.
He directed me to a room that was down a narrow hall, and I stared at the small western-style bed that was shoved up against one of the walls.
Just like the rest of the home, there wasn’t a lot to the room.
There was a dresser and an open closet with clothes hanging in it.
An air conditioner hung on the wall in the corner.
“What did you want to talk about?” Yasu still looked defensive, his arms crossed over his chest, but there was also an air of vulnerability about him. I was in such a personal space—something told me that he didn’t let people get this close all that often.
Instead of starting right away, like I should have, I ran a hand through my hair and walked over to his closet, admiring the wide array of clothes he had.
Most of it was practical everyday attire of jeans and t-shirts, but there were still the random bits that showed off the rockstar that Yasu was.
He wasn’t afraid of showing off his punk style, but it was more muted in his day-to-day life.
The rest of us wore it like a badge of honor.
The longer I was sidetracked, the more I could feel the tension in the room building.
The air grew thicker, vibrating with Yasu’s growing anxiety.
He shifted behind me while I continued to dissect his space.
While I wanted to learn everything about the man, there was nothing about the space that gave him away outside of being hyper-organized.
A minimalist, maybe.
“I’m not here to ruin everything you’ve set out to create.” I knew the words weren’t enough. Would probably never be enough, but I felt better saying them. They did something. Yasu uncrossed his arms for the first time since I’d entered his personal space.
“I need you to prove something to me.”
I turned to face him because he deserved that from me.
“Whatever you need.”
Yasu walked closer, my breath caught as he leaned in, his breath fanning over my face. Maybe it was that I was in his room that I was reading so much into the simple move, but it had my blood heating and rushing south. It wasn’t the first time that day, thanks to the singer.
He smirked as if reading the shift in my arousal. “You might regret saying that.”
“Doubt it.” Fuck, that sounded winded as shit. Yasu knew what he was doing, and I needed to tread carefully.
That smile only grew more wicked as he leaned in closer. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn that he was about to kiss me. The man hated me on the best of days, so it was wishful thinking.
Did I want to kiss him? Fuck yeah.
I wanted to peel back his layers and discover what made him tick. While Itsuki was sweet and innocent, Yasu was the bull in the china shop that I wanted to tame. He was all wild fascination that begged me to test my limits.
“You need to back off. Stay away from Itsuki. He doesn’t know what he’s getting into. I don’t want him to get hurt because you don’t know how not to toy with someone.”
My irritation only grew because here he was making assumptions about me again. What was it about Yasu that made him think that I didn’t know how to be nice to people?
“I wouldn’t mess with him like that. And what makes you think I’m into him like that to begin with?” My eyebrow rose in question as I continued to stare down Yasu.
He cleared his throat, moving in closer until there was hardly any space between us.
We were so close that every line of his body pressed against mine—I wasn’t the only one affected by our proximity.
The hard ridge of Yasu’s arousal pressed into my thigh, and I wanted so badly to rub against it, to see if I could make him gasp.
The only thing stopping me was that he was obviously pissed at me still.
The move would only serve to make him angrier.
Yasu hummed, and my breath caught when he rolled his hips. “You’re saying that you aren’t?”
This was so fucking dangerous, the wrong answer could fuck everything up.
It was getting harder and harder to control my body.
The longer I could feel his cock pulsing against mine, the harder I got.
I wanted to rut against him, find some relief, but that wasn’t why I’d come over here.
I’d come because I wanted to sort things out.
To remove the awkward tension. Did this even count?
Or were we only adding to it?