19. Sencha Green Tea
SENCHA GREEN TEA
*thirty seconds to steep or else it turns bitter.
T he sun cast a golden glow through the rice paper screen when I pressed a button in the kitchen, then took a sip of green tea while I waited for Lucas’s smoothie to blend.
The sencha was just the thing to take the edge off the morning when I hadn’t slept well.
I had instead spent half the night waking from dreams of a broad, kind mouth traveling down my body, with silver-tinted stubble that rubbed my skin in the most delicious ways.
Every time, I woke with my heart beating and the space between my legs throbbing, followed by a sudden shock of guilt when I realized I was having erotic dreams about the wrong person.
I closed my eyes as I took a sip of the smooth green blend from Shizuoka. Yeah, I’d be bringing some of this home with me for my personal stash, along with the supply of matcha I’d found at the market with Robbie. Japan was changing my entire palate.
Unfortunately, as soon as I closed my eyes, the same vision popped up in front of my mind’, whether I was awake or asleep.
Lucas.
Pinning me against the rock wall of the spring, his body slick with steam and nothing between us.
His mouth trails down my neck, over the spot beneath my ear where he kissed me before. I arch into him, aching, breathless. He presses me harder against the stone, water lapping around our hips as his mouth moves lower, skimming my collarbone, then lower still.
He hovers over my breast, lips so close I can feel the tickle of them on my nipple.
And then his cock slides between my thighs, thick and hard, teasing the place that aches only for him.
His foot nudges mine apart, one at a time.
“Is this what you want, sweet Marie?”
My eyes popped open, and I gasped.
Wrong. It was wrong to be thinking of him this way, and yet, I couldn’t stop.
There was only one answer for it. Remind myself of what—and who—was important. Who had been important to me for ten solid years before this little trip?
I pulled out my phone and dialed Daniel’s contact. Two rings later, it went straight to voicemail.
“Hey, it’s Daniel. You know what to do.”
I frowned at my phone and ended the call. It was late afternoon in New York, so I’d expect him to be able to pick up.
My thumb hovered over the Google icon.
I shouldn’t. Daniel wasn’t some phantom love interest anymore or even the grown-up equivalent of a name scribbled in my social studies notebook. He was a legitimate person, a man who had asked me on a date—twice. Someone who had kissed me, told me I was pretty, and called me his girl.
He deserved trust.
I hadn’t done it in months either. Not since Louis caught me doom-scrolling while he toured me through the Jardins des Tuileries and threatened to toss my phone into the Seine if he heard the name “Daniel” one more time.
Something in my gut pinched, like a twisted bra strap that needed to be set free.
I opened a browser tab and typed his name.
Daniel Lyons.
The search results loaded instantly. And there, at the top, was a news article accompanying a photo: Daniel at a party, wearing all white shorts and an open button-down that showed off a flat, if slightly softer than his brother’s, stomach.
With a drink in hand and a wide, easy grin, he had his arms around two women in barely-there bikinis.
Playboy heir Daniel Lyons celebrates Labor Day weekend in style
My stomach twisted again. He looked tan, relaxed, and like he hadn’t thought about me in days, if not weeks.
Anger flared in my chest, hot and unexpected. While I’d been feeling guilty about sharing a soak and having unconscious sex dreams about his brother, Daniel was very consciously living it up with models in the Hamptons.
Calm down . You have no claim on this man. You shared one dance, a moonlight walk, a whiskey-soaked kiss, and one short phone call .
He owes you nothing .
But the truth was, I thought he did. Or maybe it was that I thought I owed him , and that made it even worse.
Who was I really mad at? Him or me?
There’s my girl , he’d said on the phone.
Him, yeah. Definitely him.
And maybe still myself.
It was all very confusing.
I shouldn’t call him again, right? That would be desperate; I could already hear Joni’s voice instructing me exactly how and when to lead Daniel on and then leave him wanting more.
Those instructions would never include calling a man for the second time after Googling him and leaving a desperate voicemail in the hopes he would call me back.
My thumb pressed the call button anyway, just as the blender stopped.
This time, the message came on after only one ring.
“Hey, it’s Daniel. You know what to do.”
I bit my lip when the tone marked the beginning of my message. “Um, hi, Daniel. It’s Marie. I just thought…well, it’s been about a week, so I thought I would say hi. So…hi. I hope you’re having a good day. Okay, bye, then.”
“Pathetic,” I chided myself as I ended the call and set my phone on the counter face down so I wouldn’t have to look at the lack of response. “You’re pathetic.”
“Who’s pathetic?”
I looked up to find the rice paper door sliding open and Lucas stepping inside.
Quickly, I shoved my phone away and smiled.
God, he looked good. Better than in my dreams, having traded his suit and tie for a pair of dark jeans and a blue linen shirt.
Jeans.
Lucas was wearing jeans?
“No one.” I motioned at his attire. “Casual meetings today?”
“No meetings, actually.” He took a seat behind the long black counter. “I’m taking the day off.”
“ You are taking a day off?”
We’d been traveling now for almost two weeks, and this was the first I’d heard of such a thing in the world of Lucas Lyons.
“It is possible,” he replied. “And I was wondering if you’d like to join me on a tour of a miso factory. As a guest, not an employee. Although I’ll still take that smoothie if it’s for me.”
I swallowed as I poured his drink and did my best to hide my shock.
I should say no , I thought. A shared bath, too many dirty dreams, plus a healthy dose of resentment toward Daniel meant that being alone with this beautiful man wearing what was apparently Marie catnip equaled danger, danger, danger.
That’s right. In triplicate.
Then I turned around just as he was rolling up his sleeves.
Forearms. The man was giving me forearms.
“Give me ten minutes.”
The miso-making operation was hidden in a valley that felt untouched by time, about an hour and a half north of Tokyo.
Several wooden buildings similar to the ryokan housed row upon row of cedar vats where miso had been fermenting for decades, all overseen by an elderly woman named Tanaka-san who spoke broken English but communicated perfectly through gestures and smiles.
She led us through the process of tasting different misos, from young, white soy to aged and complex barlies, then set us up in a room where we learned the process of making our own miso by pounding soaked soybeans into a paste, then pressing golf-ball-size scoops into a crock to be shipped home ahead of us.
“My brother-in-law’s family owns a miso factory somewhere in Japan.” I used my fingers to smash down the paste, making sure no air bubbles remained that could trap harmful bacteria. “He told me about it when I was in Paris.”
“This is the duke, right?”
I nodded. “Xavier’s not really a duke. I mean, he is, but for a long time, he thought he was illegitimate.”
“Like me.” Lucas scooped some more paste into his hands. “Although I don’t think my designation will ever change.”
He looked the opposite of the serious investor. His shirt was wrinkled from our efforts, bits of soy had stained the cuff of one of his sleeves, his hair looked like what Joni would called “deliciously just-fucked.”
It might have been the most attractive version of him I’d ever seen.
“What happened between your parents?” I found myself asking.
He continued working but sighed. “Mom was an experiment for my father, I think. A first love, maybe? Although if you’re experiencing a first love in your forties, then?—”
When he abruptly cut himself off, I looked up. “Then what?”
His cheeks pinked just under the stubble he’d left to grow for the day. “Well, I was going to say, then that’s a bit sad, but realized that would make me a hypocrite.”
I balked. “You’ve never been in love?”
He rolled his eyes as he threw miso back and forth between his hands like a baseball. “That can’t surprise you. I know my reputation, and I’m betting my staff knows it too.”
I couldn’t argue. All the Lyonses’ employees, as well as the guests we served over the years, had a variety of creative nicknames for the supposedly heartless Lucas Lyons.
“Come on,” he prodded. “What are your favorite jokes?”
“You asked for it,” I replied. “Let’s see…I’ve heard ‘Mr. Glacier,’ which frankly isn’t very inventive. And the ‘Ice Man’ is just plagiarizing from Top Gun . But The Tin Man in Tom Ford is pretty good.”
Lucas scowled. “That’s just inaccurate. I never wear Tom Ford. All my suits are made by my tailor in Milan, Riccardo.”
I giggled, and he scowled even harder. “Then there’s my favorite. ‘Chateau de No Feelings.’”
That earned me the deepest scowl of all, causing my laugh to bounce off the high-beamed ceilings. “You just like that one because it’s partially French.”
I held up my hands, one covered in miso paste. “I never said I was a poet.”
He scooped up a bit of miso and dabbed it on my nose and cheek.
“Ah!” I shrieked, wiping at my face with my clean(er) hand. “What are you doing?”
“That’s called payback,” Lucas replied, now grinning. “Seems appropriate for an emotionless jerk, don’t you think?”
I scooped up a bit of the salty paste myself and reached out with my finger. “Only if you can take what you dish out, sir. I grew up with five siblings. Food fights are a religion in my world.”
But before I could tap my finger to his chiseled cheek, Lucas turned his head, grabbed my wrist, and wrapped his lips around my fingertip.
I froze.