19. Sencha Green Tea #2
When his tongue wrapped around the end of my digit, I full-on gasped. And when he sucked, hard, I was glad to be sitting, because my knees buckled.
This was nothing like what Daniel had done in the kitchen, ruining my ice cream and making a predictable attempt to seduce me. This was spontaneous. Joyful. And incredibly hot.
“Lucas,” I whispered.
With one more twist of his tongue, he sucked once more, then released my hand with a pop.
“It was too good to waste,” he said, low and rough.
I nibbled a bit of the residue left on my other hand and made a face. “It’s very salty.”
For that, I received a smile as smooth as browned butter. “And here I thought you were my chef. A little salt makes some things even sweeter, doesn’t it?”
To that, I had no retort.
“I think we’re done here.” Lucas stood and waved to Tanaka-san, who was working in the corner of the kitchen. “Let’s clean up and go for a walk.”
While Tanaka-san wrapped up our miso-making project to send home, I followed Lucas to the outer grounds of the factory, which led up a hillside terraced with rice paddies.
According to the owner, the area grew the rice necessary for the production of koji, the cultured grain that fermented the miso.
“Why did you want to take me here today?” I asked as we started on a path that wound through the paddies, crowded by the golden fronds of rice nearly ready for harvest. “Was it just another experience?”
“For me as much as for you.” Lucas stopped at a muddy walkway covered by some boards, held out a hand for mine, then guided me across the walkway.
When we continued on the path, he didn’t let go.
And I didn’t take my hand back.
“You’ve been getting out more, I noticed, and I’m proud of you. Today, I wanted to join you.”
I grinned. “Now, who’s the sweet one, Lucas Lyons? Sounds to me like the Ice Man melteth.”
He rolled his eyes. “You get this look on your face when you experience something new, and it’s catching. I think I forgot what the joy of novelty feels like. Or maybe just experiencing pleasure for pleasure’s sake.”
I nodded as we walked. “I sort of grew up with the dolce vita mindset, Italian grandparents and all. But I never really lived it until I was in Paris. Joie de vivre , they call it. Not quite the same thing, but similar.”
“I thought that meant being very lively. Happy to be alive.”
I shook my head as Lucas released my hand to walk ahead on a narrow path.
“It does mean that, but it’s also used more to capture how people find joy in small pleasures.
Things that don’t need a lot of money. The French don’t live for their jobs, see?
They have a strict thirty-five-hour work week, and everyone takes all of August off.
They don’t start until ten, and they take long lunches.
They have things like socialized healthcare that allows people to enjoy their incomes instead of having to squirrel it all away until they are old. ”
“You hear about it in theory, but I can’t imagine that makes for much productivity.”
“Productivity isn’t the point. The French believe people have a right to pleasure, not purchases.
They also think that pleasure shouldn’t ruin your budget.
With just fifteen euros in Paris, you can get a pichet of really good wine, a baguette, and some cheese at a café, then sit with your book and read for three hours.
You people-watch, you read a passage, you enjoy the beautiful architecture, history, and art that surrounds you. It just seeps into your soul.”
By the time I finished, Lucas had stopped walking. I halted alongside him, beside a shed at the top of a paddy, from which we could look down the hillside over the rolling golden terraces and down to the valley below.
He looked like a starving man in need of a good meal. A parched man dying of thirst.
“Lucas?” I ventured. “Are you…are you all right?”
“You make it sound so easy.” His voice was strained. “Pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Living with so little. To need only a few dollars and let go of the rest.”
I reached for his hand again. He stared at them, connected.
“It’s different for everyone,” I said as kindly as I could. “Maybe because I grew up with so little, I know I don’t need much.”
As a breeze flew by, he brushed a bit of hair out of my face in a move so tender, I couldn’t help but lean into the gesture.
“Maybe you grew up with little,” he told me, “but you deserve the entire world.”
My heart stuttered. And the bird in my chest, which I now saw as a dove waiting for its mate, started beating its wings.
I should’ve said thank you. Should’ve stepped back and played it safe like I always did.
Instead, I stared at Lucas Lyons’s mouth like it was the softest meringue atop the perfect tart. That mouth had kissed me in the conservatory. A kiss that had left me breathless, stunned, and utterly rewired.
And then I’d slapped him for it. Told myself and him it had meant nothing. That it wasn’t real. For days now, I’d been telling myself I couldn’t want that kind of thing with him anyway.
But I was lying. I wanted pleasure for its own sake. I wanted heat and weight and skin and him , just because he felt good.
If I couldn’t admit that, then what was the point of anything I’d learned?
Do everything you’re not supposed to , Lea had told me. Before it’s too late .
“Lucas?”
“Yes?”
“Will you…Will you kiss me again?” My voice was barely a whisper on the wind. “Not as a message this time. Or because it has to mean anything. Just because it feels good. Because it did feel good to me. And I wondered if maybe… Did it feel good to you?”
He went very still, and for a moment, I thought he would refuse. He should refuse, for both our sakes.
But, God, I wanted him to say yes.
“Marie. You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I think I do.” My hand trembled as I reached up to trace his jaw with my finger. Shivered at the delicate scrape of his stubble. Imagined that roughness reddening my untouched skin. “And I’m not asking whether I know what I want. I’m asking if you want it too.”
“You’re asking if I want to kiss you…” He seemed to be processing the request until that final word, when his gaze snapped back to mine.
And just like in the kitchen, just like in my dreams, those broad, solid hands were on my shoulders again, then my waist, as he backed me against the wooden wall of the shed and proceeded to kiss me like he was drowning, and I was the oxygen that could save him.
“Does that feel , ” he demanded between harsh gulps of air, “like I don’t want to kiss you, sweet girl?”
I could barely suck in another breath before his mouth was on mine again as he slid his fingers into my hair and hauled me closer.
“Sweet,” he grumbled against my lips before taking them again and again. “My sweet, sweet Marie.”
“Lucas,” I gasped as his mouth trailed down my neck. “ Oh !”
“Tell me to stop.” He sucked hard on that spot below my ear, enough to make my hips roll toward his. “Tell me this is wrong.”
“It is wrong.” My breath had turned to short pants as his tongue continued whatever voodoo it was working on my neck. But instead of pushing him away, my hands found their way into his hair and pulled, encouraging him on his mission. “But— oh —I don’t want you to stop.”
His hands drifted down again, encircling my ribs so his thumbs brushed the undersides of my breasts through my shirt.
My back arched. Lucas groaned.
“You’ve never had anyone touch you like this, have you?” His thumbs continued higher, teasing the outline of my breasts, memorizing their shape.
“No.” The world felt torn from my chest.
“Fuck,” he breathed. “I’m going to hell for this.” He cupped my breasts fully, then. Stroked my nipples more, then pulled lightly while his mouth claimed mine again.
“Lucas,” I panted as he pulled at my collar, eager for more flesh. “What—oh my God .”
My hands fell down his shoulders, to his waist, where I fumbled with his jeans.
There was no thinking. It was automatic. All I wanted was to get closer.
Lucas groaned into my neck, the vibration making me whimper, but he caught my wrist just before I got the button undone.
“Don’t.”
“What? Why?”
“If you touch me like that, I won’t be able to stop.”
The bird was trying to fly now. And God, I wanted to let it out.
“M-maybe—” The word was barely a stutter from my lips. “Maybe I don’t want you to stop.”
His eyes met mine, and what I saw there was so dark, so full of want and self-recrimination, that it took my breath away.
The hands at my breasts squeezed lightly, then moved back down my body, pulling me flush against him before he kissed me again, this time slowly, achingly, and so long I was as limp as a silk ribbon in his arms, moaning into his mouth before it was done.
When he released me, he pressed his forehead to mine.
“When you ask me for that, Marie,” he said, “there won’t be any ‘maybe’ about it.
You’ll be torn up with need, swamped in your own pleasure, whimpering for my dick after I’ve made you come so many times you’ll have forgotten your own fucking name.
” He took my chin and forced me to look at him.
“I’ll have you like that, sweetheart, or I don’t deserve to have you at all. ”
We stood there, mouth to mouth, body to body, not moving while a breeze whistled around us and my heart thundered for more.
I opened my mouth to answer him.
To tell him there were no more maybes in my voice or my mind.
That if he wanted me to beg, I’d get down on my knees in the rice paddies, right here, right now.
But before I could say a word, a loud buzzing interrupted us.
My phone.
Lucas took one more deep breath, then released me against the wall and stepped away. “You’d better get that.”
Had I? I wanted to ask, but I retrieved my phone from my purse.
A text from Daniel was waiting.
Thinking about you, gorgeous.
That was all.
No questions. No calls. No wondering what I was doing or sharing any other parts of his day either, or even acknowledging the fact that I had called twice and left him a message hours earlier.
Just thinking of me.
It didn’t seem like nearly enough.
With Lucas’s kiss still burning on my lips, it didn’t seem like anything at all.
When I started working for the Lyonses, Daniel received a new car for his high school graduation, a beautiful Ferrari that gleamed like a fire engine in the summer sun.
For two weeks, he drove that car everywhere. Told every staff member and anyone who would listen about the custom paint job, the chrome wheels, the leather seats, and the one-of-a-kind engine.
Then Lucas showed up with a car of his own, a staid black Mercedes S-Class that barely made a sound when it moved, had tinted, bulletproof windows, and purred like a kitten with the power of a tank. Daniel took one look at the Mercedes and decided the Ferrari was trash.
As far as I knew, Lucas still had Lawrence drive him to work every day in that Mercedes. Sometimes the Rolls his father preferred. But Daniel’s Ferrari was gone, along with the many other cars that had followed in its wake.
For a split second, I wondered if Daniel knew I was here, pressed to a shed with the wet print of his brother’s mouth still cooling on my neck.
Did that make me the Ferrari or the Mercedes?
And did he really want either of them at all?
“Call him,” Lucas suggested as he turned back to the path. “Go ahead.”
I looked at my phone, then back up at him. “But don’t you think?—”
“It’s fine.” His voice returned to its usual controlled tone as he gave me space to fix my clothing. “It’s like you said—pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Nothing more.” When his eyes found mine again, they were kind, if somewhat more distant. “It’s okay, Marie. Really.”
It wasn’t fine. He knew it, and I knew it. But neither of us was going to say it out loud.
“Okay.” My voice was smaller than I intended. “I’ll…call him on the way back to the ryokan.”
I did call Daniel again too, but once again, was sent to voicemail.
I didn’t leave a message.
The silence in the car was loud enough.