My mouth watered and I had to swallow hard.
I continued to stare for far too long, joining the host of women I could see looking at him now.
I couldn’t look away.
I took in his dark blue jeans that showed off the athletic definition in his legs.
Maybe he felt my eyes on him, but then there were so many more eyes fixed on him. I wondered how it was he’d singled me out when he turned and his eyes landed straight on me.
This felt just like that time when I was about fifteen and he was a sophomore in college. My mom caught me staring at him and gave me a lecture on how I needed to find a boy who was closer in age to me.
Then when she caught me sneaking off to the beach because Tai and his friends were having a party she went mad at me.
As I watched him he felt just as forbidden to me as he did back then.
But I wasn’t some starry-eyed teenager anymore. There was a difference between being fifteen and twenty, eighteen and twenty-three.
Twenty-nine and thirty-four.
No one could tell me who I could and couldn’t be with anymore.
A beautiful Japanese woman that looked like a model rushed up to him and gave him a hug, but his eyes were still on me.
A little kick to my leg broke my stare and I turned back to Mitsuke. Her face was an illuminated glow of bliss.
“Oh my God,” she beamed. “You still have the hots for my cousin.”
“What?” I narrowed my eyes and wished we’d gotten something with ice. My skin was on fire and my cheeks burned.
“Don’t you what me.” She wagged her pointer at me and smiled. “You like him. you still like him, after all these years.”
I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out.
The thing was, although I knew it was obvious to everyone that I had a mega crush on him when we were younger, I never admitted it.
I told Mitsuke everything, absolutely everything but not that. I’d always been too embarrassed to admit it, always thinking she would say he wouldn’t like me or something like that.
I also never told her what happened that last summer when I saw him either.
“He’s very nice.” I stuttered.
Mitsuke laughed. “You and I both know that Tai is far from nice. My cousin is an absolute prick. If I weren’t related to him I wouldn’t speak to him at all.” She giggled. “I can see you don’t mind the bad-boy types.”
“Mitsuke, please just drop it.”
“He’s coming over.” Excitement danced in her eyes.
I looked back to where Tai had been and saw that he was indeed coming over.
God, this was the longest day ever.
But perhaps the most exciting I’d had in a while.
Chapter 8
Phoebe
I pulled in a slow breath and observed the deadly handsome man walking towards me, oozing confidence.
Tai’s black spiky hair glistened against the light. It made the sharp cut of his faux hawk look more striking.
The definition in his face was enchanting to look at with the slight almond shape to his brown eyes. His tanned skin made him look all the more exotic.
He looked at Mitsuke and me as he stopped by our table, but then his eyes were trained on me.
The intensity of the look he gave me hardened my nipples and sent off a nest of butterflies in my stomach.
“Ladies, out for the night?” He smiled.
“We are indeed.” Mitsuke beamed. “You want to join us? Or are you here on a date?”
Tai chuckled, “I’m not on a date.”
“Plenty room to join us then.”
There was a space on Mitsuke’s side of the booth but he sat down next to me and continued to stare.
“I love this. Look at us together again.” Mitsuke beamed.
“Yeah. It’s nice,” I offered sounding a little off balance.
“It is, would have been nicer if Phoebe hadn’t abandoned her friends in Japan for over a decade.” Tai mused. His leg brushed against mine. “Then we’d have more to talk about.”
“I didn’t abandon anyone,” I defended.
“Nope, she definitely did not abandon anybody. Unlike you, Phoebe has been to Japan nearly every year. Not so much in the last few years but she passes the test,” Mitsuke chimed in.
“Never told me that.” Tai looked a little thrown to hear that.
Had he thought about me over the years? I doubted it. Maybe he did at first but I was certain I would have been forgotten as time drifted on.
“You never asked,” she threw back. “Plus you could have stayed in touch if you wanted.”
He could have, if he wanted to.
After the way mom spoke to him when we last saw each other I doubted that he would have wanted to. It hurt but I was over it. It wasn’t like in the space between my summer visits of the past that he kept contact anyway.
“I have a good excuse, the best.” He grinned.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Off in Iraq fighting a war.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
Mitsuke on the other hand decided to continue. “Were your hands tied to your back? You could have written to her.”
“It’s the women who usually write to their men when they go to war. I never even got as much as a post-it note from Phoebe.”
Mitsuke looked at us both, a cunning expression forming on her face.
My cheeks flushed from what he’d said.
The women write to their men, as if he was ever mine.
Tai was giving me an expectant look like he was really waiting for an answer. His ridiculously handsome face looming over me. He was so close I could smell his cologne and the musky, alluring scent that was him.
I lifted my shoulder in a half shrug. “I wasn’t aware that I could write to you, and I was never given an address.”
“Hmmm.” He responded.
Mitsuke started laughing. Tai smiled.
“Okay, princess, looks like it’s my fault. My apologies.”
Princess. He used to call me that but not in a good way. It was because of how Mom pampered me. How she trained Emma and me to be prim and proper, except that I was far from prim or proper.
I was the opposite of the princess my mother wanted me to be.
“It’s okay, you’re forgiven. I’m here now.”
His eyes were trained on me in a way that transported me away from the busy club scene we were in straight to the past.
I couldn’t help but think back to that last time and all that he said to me.
I must have played out that scene more than a million times in my mind over the years.
Maybe more than that.
“We’re all here now,” I chipped in but I guess I was referring to the two of us.
“Why are you at Bonkai?” Mitsuke asked him.
“Came to check on something then dash.”
Oh, he was leaving.
“Where to?” She looked like she knew the answer to that question but wanted to hear him say it.
He rested his thick tattooed arm on the table leaning down on his elbow.
That smile, there were several versions of it but this spelt mischief of the worse kind.
“Circuit, want to come?”
What was the circuit?
Mitsuke frowned. “You promised me you’d stopped that.”
“I don’t remember making such a promise.”
“Man bitch.”
Tai laughed, glanced at me and stood up. “You coming, princess?”
I widened my eyes—he was referring to me. Me going with him to this place.
“What?”
Mitsuke looked intrigued.
“You coming?”
“To this circuit place?”
He nodded.
God, I should say no. I was more than desperate for sleep. That aside, going anywhere with Tai in the past always got me in some sort of trouble.
Usually with Mom, who wasn’t here. I
was an adult now, more than.
Plus, had I ever been able to say no to him?
I couldn’t remember, and if I did it must have been when I was sick.
“Yes,” I heard myself say.
While a satisfied smile smoothed across Tai’s lips, Mitsuke’s mouth dropped.
“Oh my God,” she said on a sigh.
“I’ll stay for an hour or so.” I tried to style it out.
A deep chuckle rumbled in Tai’s chest.
“Phoebe, it’s not the kind of place that you stay at for an hour or so.” Mitsuke was shaking her head. “Just don’t die.”
“Hey, don’t scare her. She’s with me.” Tai beamed.
“That’s the problem.”
“Maybe you should come along too,” I said to Mitsuke.
“No, you two go. Just stay out of trouble.”
“Mitsuke, don’t let the old man stay up worrying.” He gave Mitsuke a knowing look to which she stuck out her tongue, reminding me of a naughty little six year old.
Tai took hold of my hand and pulled me away, preventing any further conversation.
His large hands over mine seeped warmth into my skin.
He looked back at me over his shoulder as we maneuvered our way through the crowds and grinned.
I smiled back but really, I didn’t know what the hell I was getting myself into.
This… this was just like we used to be years ago.
Me following him on a whim’s notice, off to somewhere I knew would be trouble. Worrying my ass off that Mom would find out but not caring about the consequences.
But this was now, and I could follow him wherever I wanted to and I didn’t have to worry about anyone. Or anything…
Just maybe my life.
When we got outside on the road he pulled me up to a midnight black Kawasaki motorcycle. It looked like something you’d see in one of the Terminator films.
He took the helmet off the handle, where it had been hooked, and handed it to me.
“We’re going by bike?” I gasped.
I’d never ridden on one of those things and never had it on my to-do list.
Motorcycles always seemed so dangerous and when he gave me his helmet, what would he have? He wasn’t even dressed with the jackets and protective wear I saw most people put on.
And me? I was in this skimpy dress that I was pretty certain would give a great view of my ass exposed for all to see.
“Yes, princess, we are going by bike.”
“I can’t.” I was scared.
“Too late—you said you were coming, plus this is us catching up.” He seemed to be loving my panic.
“Look what I’m wearing.”
“I saw, it’s very sexy.”
Jesus, I needed to find strength from somewhere so I wouldn’t allow this man to get to me. This was day one in Japan and more than once today he’d managed to get me all worked up and hot and bothered.
“Tai, it’s short. I don’t want the whole of Tokyo to see my ass on display.”
His thick brows lowered. “Fair dues, I don’t want anyone getting to see that ass of yours before me.” The corners of his lips turned upwards.
I didn’t know how to respond. He was totally flirting with me.
Since all my awful years with Jason and the years that followed when I was trying to sort myself out, I admittedly forgot how to flirt.
And, how to feel when I was being flirted with.
“Raincheck?”
“Fuck no.” He smirked, taking hold of my arm. He looked me over and held up the hem of my dress where it went out into a slight flair. “Get on, you’ll be fine.”
I sighed.
I wasn’t going to get out of this, was I? And it wasn’t because there was some force or even a reason to make me go on that damn bike with him.
It was because I simply wanted to. I’d never been able to fight the temptation of him, and there was no point trying now.
Not when I knew that no matter what trouble he got up to, I’d always end up having a good time.
I swung one leg over the bike and sat on the little back seat. I could feel my dress starting to ride up. Then oh, the boldness of Tai took over. How could I have forgotten his outlandish actions?
He took the liberty of hooking the hem of my dress between my legs. And I mean between, between. He didn’t care where he was touching. His fingers brushed the inner skin of my thighs and fluttered over my crotch.
I gasped and my jaw dropped.
I at least had some brain cells left that were working and I swatted his hands away.
“What are you doing?”
He laughed. “Fixing you, baby. No need to get testy.”
“Your hands were practically in my panties.”
“Nah, if my hands were in your panties they wouldn’t be practically in. They’d be in.”
No, this wasn’t just flirting. Tai took flirting to a whole other level.
“You are unbelievable.”
He set the helmet over my head and then jumped on.
“Hold on tight, princess. Whatever you do don’t let go.”
I didn’t plan to.
He pulled out some visor shaped shades from the dashboard console and set them on his face.
I slipped my arms around him and got lost instantly when I felt the corded muscles of his abs. My thoughts went straight from my mind and fluttered a little farther down south than I wanted. I almost felt like touching him was doing something I wasn’t supposed to.
He took note of my hesitation and response and seemed to know. That Cheshire cat, predatory grin that smoothed across his sensual lips as he looked back at me told me he did.
Tai took hold of my hands and pressed them hard into his chest.
“Tight, princess. Take the opportunity to feel whatever part of me you want while you’re at it.”
I bit the inside of my mouth to hide the smile that threatened to break free.
Seconds later, we were off.
I pressed my face to the helmet and into his wide back, holding on for dear life but also loving the feel of him. The hardness of the muscles that corded his chest, the strong beat of his heart, the scent of him that paralyzed me, numbing my fears of falling off and dying.
He was a real pro. He tore through the night like a demon on adrenaline zipping in and out of traffic and then flying down the less busy streets.
I noticed straight away when we started to slow.
I lifted my head when I heard music. We were near the beach. I could smell the saltiness in the air.
The music got louder and then there were people everywhere.
It was a party but on the street.
And… damn, as we got closer I saw four cars that looked like they could have been on the set of The Fast and The Furious.
“Oh my God.” I could see now why Mitsuke got so worked up.
These people were getting ready to race.
“A car race. On the street?” I hissed against Tai’s back. He gave my hand a gentle squeeze and glanced back at me.
“A car race on the street,” he confirmed.
We parked and my legs felt like they would fall off from clenching my thighs so tight.
Thank God for the pumps I wore instead of the heels. I would have hated to be walking around in heels now. I knew I would just fall over or something, embarrassing myself.
Tai got off first and then helped me.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked with a shrug as I took off the helmet.
“Yes, it was. You drive like a crazy person.”
“I am crazy, remember?” His eyes shone. “Do you want me to help with the dress down there again?”
“Crazy and a perv.”
“Crazy and a perv.” He winked at me.
I shook my head. “What are we doing here? Are you going to race?” I knew he had a thing for fast cars. It wouldn’t surprise me if he raced them too. Although I was pretty sure this setup had to be illegal.
“Nope, those days are gone. Plus I’d have to take you with me.”
“And I would say no.” I smirked.
“And I would haul your fine ass over my shoulder and strap you to me. This isn’t the kind of place where you can hang out by yourself.”
My ass had been referred to many times tonight.
“What is your obsession with my ass?”
The cool night breeze made the spiky ends of his hair lift and dance.
“It’s fine.”
I folded my arms. “Day one, Tai, is this what you’re going to be like for the whole time I’m here? You looking at my ass and making comments.”
He stepped closer, right into my personal space and lowered his mouth so he was inches away from my ear.
“Nah, I move faster than that, princess.” His warm breath tickled my skin.
I tried to act like I was immune to him. Like I could be cool and casual, unaffected, but desire pooled between my thighs, pulling at my groin, at the prospect of him moving faster.
As if my thoughts needed more of a visual he said, “Your ass will be mine well before you leave.”
Of course he had to finish that with a completely obvious sexual look where he scanned my body with those deadly eyes.
I swallowed hard and pulled in a breath to release some of the tension that tugged on my insides. “I can see you’re still so full of yourself.”
“And you’re trying to act like you’ve changed.”
“Of course I’ve changed. I’m eleven years older, not the naïve teenage girl who used to follow you around.”
“Yet here you are princess. Me and you.” His smile… it was that self-satisfied one that irritated me, because he was right.
I guess I landed myself in that one.
“What are we doing here, Tai? It’s late and I’m cranky. Don’t piss me off.”
He chuckled. “Picking up my winnings and catching up.” He put out his hand for me to take.
I looked at his outstretched hand, thinking about how we’d be walking around holding hands.
I took it and he pulled me close.
It did look like a rough scene. There were so many people here and they looked like the type who’d be cutthroat about racing and winning.
Blossoms of The Heart Page 7
