My eyes darted from one of them to the other. “Okay. What did I say wrong? Is the food totally different?”
Donovan knelt at the head of the table next to me. “It’s Okazu . Not okasu. The first, which is the name of the restaurant, is a word that means food that accompanies rice. The second is a verb. That means rape.”
I rolled my eyes, taking a menu from the hostess before she scurried out of the room. “Who would name a restaurant something so close to a word that you’d never want the place to be called?”
Donovan bent over his own menu. “Both could be appropriate depending on how well our dinner goes.”
I scowled, but something hummed deep in my belly and spread between my thighs. And I was pretty sure my scowl didn’t look as sour as I’d meant it to, so I hid behind the menu for as long as I could.
Which was about three seconds.
Then I sighed when I couldn’t read a single word. “This might as well be Chinese,” I said, throwing it down in front of me.
“It’s Japanese.”
“Oh, yeah.” I managed a smile at my stupid word choice. “I guess you can order for me.”
“I already planned to.” It was another remark that deserved a glare, and I was sure to deliver.
When the waitress arrived a few minutes later, she brought a porcelain container and two cups, which she set down on the table in front of us. Then Donovan proceeded to order in fluent Japanese, which was also a lot sexier than I could have imagined. As was seeing him sitting so comfortably on his knees. Basically, I was learning that almost everything where Donovan was concerned was a lot sexier than it should be.
Which made things complicated. I could understand a sex only thing between us, but if he made everything so sexy, then what did that leave as not sex?
The whole thing was frustrating, and that wasn’t helping my underlying mood.
When the waitress left, Donovan poured the liquid from the container into one of the cups and turned to me.
“We need to talk about why you’re still wearing your panties.”
I hadn’t told him. And my little mishap with the skirt upstairs hadn’t been enough to show off the goods. He just knew. Like always.
“I bet you’re still wearing your underwear too,” I said as sassily as I could. Though I was pretty sure his weren’t nearly as wet as mine were at the moment.
He handed the cup out to me. “Drink this.”
“Why? Did you spike it when I blinked?”
He glowered at me. “I don’t need to spike it. I’m trying to help you with the stick up your ass.”
I let that sink in. “Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined you accusing me of having a stick up my ass.”
He dipped his thumb in the cup and then smeared my bottom lip with the liquid. “That’s how wound up you are. You’re the uptight one tonight.”
A shiver ran down my spine and my lungs suddenly felt constrained, like my bra was too tight. I licked the liquid from my lip—sake—and wished I could suck the rest from his thumb.
Except I was still feeling all the other things I was feeling, too.
“Did you consider that I might have reason to be wound up? That the reason might be you?” I took a swallow of the sake, finding it more acidic than I’d expected, which fittingly matched my mood.
He leaned close and the warmth of his breath at my neck accompanied his next words. “I don’t care why you’re wound up. I care what you’re wearing.”
Yep. Panties definitely weren’t dry.
“There’s a restroom in the hall to the left,” he said, believing he had me under his command.
Apparently, he wasn’t wrong. “I’ll be back.”
In the bathroom, I slipped into a stall, undid my garters and, while continuously shaking my head at myself, removed my panties. I still didn’t have anywhere to put them, so I wadded them into a ball in my fist and stopped at the mirror to check my lip gloss and give myself a silent pep talk.
Being mad wasn’t making the night better for me. Nor was being confused or frustrated or hurt. And none of it was meant to make the night better for him. So what was the point of holding on to these miserable emotions?
No point. No point at all.
With my panties still hidden in my fist, I returned to the table, knelt at my place, and dropped them discreetly in Donovan’s lap.
He held them up like they were treasured lace and swept them under his nose as though attempting to identify the bouquet of a wine cork.
“Oh my god!” Nervously I glanced around the restaurant. The people across the hall weren’t paying attention to us, thank goodness, and no one was walking by. The lights were dim and shadows could be seen through the thin walls between rooms, but I couldn’t make out what our neighbors were doing. No one would be able to tell that Donovan was showing off my panties.
“I didn’t have anywhere to put them,” I explained, when I felt less panicked about his display.
His eyes narrowed in on my mouth. “I can think of somewhere I’d like to put them.”
I took a breath but only managed a shallow one. It had been an element of some of my fantasies—Donovan stuffing my panties in my mouth to keep me from screaming. The image was already burned into my mind from previous daydreams, but now I had a feeling that the image was burned into his mind as well.
And, Jesus, there’d been a good reason I’d been wearing panties. Was I leaving wet stains on the cushion now?
Someone walked past our room. My hand shot out over Donovan’s forearm and pushed it below the table, into his lap. “But we’re in public. So you can put them in your pocket and return them to me later.”
“Yes,” he said, with a victorious smirk. “I can put them in my pocket.” He knelt higher so he could stuff them in his pants pocket then fell back on his feet.
I had a pretty good feeling I was never seeing that pair of underwear again.
With my panties no longer a source of distraction, I noticed something new had been placed on the table since I’d been in the restroom—a silver platter with a lid. Next to it was a pair of metal tongs.
I nodded toward the dish. “What’s that?”
He took off the lid and steam rushed out. Several towels were rolled up in a pile inside. With the tongs, he picked up a rolled towel and set it on the table long enough to replace the lid. “It’s customary to wash our hands before the meal.”
He picked up the towel and unrolled it, bouncing it from hand to hand a few times until it cooled enough to hold. Then he gestured for me to hold out my hands toward him. Carefully and attentively, he cleaned between each of my fingers and washed my palms and the backs of my hands.
It was strangely erotic and sensual, but it was also intimate. Tender, even. And so while it made my thighs clench and my blood rush hot, it also made my breath stick in my chest. My head felt dizzy.
The moment was too heavy. Like a weightlifter trying to hold a barbell that’s too weighted, I couldn’t hold it without it pressing down on my chest. Without it crushing down on my heart. Without it meaning something that it wasn’t supposed to mean.