Grounded (33 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Mr. Indulgent

The Cavendish property was located in the Ginza district in Tokyo.
 
I had gotten every tourist booklet that I could get my hands on about the city, but James had a wealth of information, as well, since he had apparently spent plenty of time in Tokyo himself.
 
According to my tourist booklet, and James, Ginza was one of the main shopping districts in the city.

We were given the royal treatment from the moment we walked in the door.
 
I was growing accustomed to it, though the Japanese took the royal treatment to a whole new level.
 
I was still growing accustomed to the Japanese way of bowing in deference to one another.
 
I found their manners charming, and tried to emulate them quickly, wanting to blend into the culture as much as possible, though of course it was impossible for me to blend in there.
 
Still, I badly wanted to avoid standing out as a rude foreigner.

James had his manners down perfectly, as though he visited often.
 
For all I knew, he did.
 
He even spoke a convenient amount of the language.
 
I had studied it, but I was hopelessly outclassed.
 
One sentence of Japanese out of his mouth and I was lost, just watching him in awe and not understanding a word of it.
 
The locals seemed to have no trouble, though.
 

We’d been discussing for weeks just what kind of a trip I had envisioned when I thought about visiting Tokyo.
 
James seemed to find it charming that I’d only been thinking of a tourist type tour of the city.
 
I wanted to use the subway, visit every temple, shrine and park, and all of the popular attractions.
 
Basically, I wanted to see as much of the quirky city as humanly possible.
 
The plan was for nine days around the city, then another four in the areas surrounding Mount Fuji, and then one day on top of the mountain itself.
 
I had even talked James into camping out on top for a night.
 
He had been easy to convince, considering that he’d never actually been camping before.
 
I wasn’t an expert on camping myself, but I was an expert on roughing it, and a night in a tent on top of a famous mountain just sounded like fun to me.
 
I got the idea in my head, and James didn’t even try to dissuade me.
 

“Of course, I’ll arrange for supplies,” was all he’d said, giving me his indulgent smile.

We started our first sightseeing day in Tokyo at the crack of dawn.
 
We wore shorts, T-shirts, and comfortable shoes like the tourists we were, and set off on foot for our first destination.
 
Kyokyo, the Imperial Palace, was only twenty minutes from our hotel, so we went there first.
 
Our security trailed us at a somewhat discreet distance, and I almost forgot they were there for most of the day.
 
The palace grounds alone took up most of our morning.
 

We encountered the scenic jogging trail that surrounded the palace grounds first.
 
I had been reading aloud about the trail from a tour guidebook the night before, so James grinned as he pointed it out to me.
 
“Wanna go for a jog?” he asked me.

I nodded and smiled.
 
I wasn’t a big jogger.
 
Even when I did work out, it was usually lower impact cardio than an actual run, but it sounded perfect just then.

We jogged for maybe ten minutes, James keeping pace beside me, before I slowed to a brisk walk.
 

I grimaced at him.
 
“I know this won’t be a shocker, but you’re in much better shape than I am.”

He gave me a rather lascivious once-over.
 
“I disagree.
 
I like
your shape
much better, Love.”

I laughed.
 
The man could turn anything suggestive.

We spent hours walking the trail around the grounds and covering every inch of the scenic gardens inside.
 
It was a romantic setting and James, being a romantic soul, used every bit of it to his advantage, clasping my hand and smiling into my eyes.
 
If I wasn’t already hopelessly in love with him, just one morning like this one and I swore he would have changed that.

We took our time exploring the palace, and when we were done, we found another charming park just a few blocks away.
 
Children played some version of soccer in a shaded dirt field.
 
The people we had encountered had been the epitome of polite so far, not even staring at us, though we must have seemed out of place to everyone there.
 
The only difference were kids under fifteen.
 
They stared unabashedly at us, their game coming to a halt as we strolled by.
 
As we drew even with them, all of the young teenage boys raised their hands in the air, as though they had planned it, and began to cheer.
 
I giggled at the strange reaction, looking at James.
 
“What was that?” I asked him.

He was grinning.
 
“I think we just found some new members of your fan club.”

I rolled my eyes, still laughing.
 
Boys were weird.

We strolled the large circular park, pausing when we caught sight of an impromptu concert in the park.
 
A crowd had gathered to watch a small orchestra play.
 

James pulled me into his arms, handling me with mastery and gallantry, surely a rare combination.
 
He moved into a light-stepping waltz, smiling down into my eyes.
 

“What a charming city,” I told him, smiling back, enjoying the novelty of a morning dance in the park.

He nodded.
 
“I’m finding a new love for this city.
 
For everything.
 
You’ve made the world a new and exciting place for me.”
 

I flushed in pleasure, believing every intoxicating word he said to me.
 

We leisurely walked from the Imperial Palace district and back to the Ginza district, shopping a little, but mostly just exploring the fascinating city.
 
We walked through a mall, and used a tour guidebook to try to find one of the large city gardens in the Tokyo Bay that I’d marked.
 

We were trying to decipher the map for maybe five minutes, laughing at our confusion, when Clark approached.
 
He’d been hovering with Blake, following at a discreet distance all day.
 

“The Hamarikyu Gardens, right?” he asked, peeking at our map.

I nodded.
 

He pointed down a street.
 
“That way,” he said.
 
He had apparently been here before.
 
“We’ll pass the fish market, which is closed for the day, but it’s just a few blocks past that.”

We thanked him and began to wander that way.
 
James had an arm wrapped around my waist, holding me close, uncaring of the heat and humidity.
 

“We’ll have to do the fish market tomorrow morning,” James said.
 
“It’s worth it.
 
Best sushi in the world.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the time of the day, or the day of the week, but the lovely gardens were nearly deserted, only the occasional painter capturing one of the park’s landmarks visible.
 
The beauty of the well-maintained gardens stood in stark contrast to the skyscrapers of the adjacent Shiodome district.
 
We circled the large park leisurely, stopping often to enjoy views of the scenic garden, and the waters of the bay beside it.
 

“Let me know if you see something that you just have to paint,” James told me, as we passed another artist.
 
“I can have supplies brought right away, if you’re so inclined.
 
This place seems to inspire artists.”

I smiled at him, loving that he tried so hard to understand me.
 
I had just been thinking that I’d like to spend a morning painting here.
 

“You’re so sweet,” I told him.

He smiled, and it was as un-sweet as it could be.
 
“I was just plotting where I would fuck you here.
 
You have strange ideas about sweet.”

I laughed.
 
I had a feeling that seeing the world with James would give me strange ideas about a lot of things.
 
“How do you propose we do that?”

His eyes smoldered at me.
 
“You let me worry about that.
 
There’s a teahouse set on a tiny island in the center of the gardens.
 
How would you like to attend a traditional Japanese tea ceremony?”

I was delighted by the idea.
 
“I’d love nothing more.
 
Except perhaps your other plans.”

He winked at me, giving me a roguish smile.
 
“There’s no reason we can’t do both.”

The teahouse was quaint but I found it incredibly beautiful, the open windows with a view of the gardens like a frame for a perfect picture.
 
We sat cross-legged on a tan bamboo mat while an ageless looking Japanese woman went through the painstaking and elegant ritual.
 
I watched with rapt attention, fascinated with every detail, because every detail was so perfectly orchestrated.
 
The simplest motions became art as the practiced woman moved fluidly through the ritual, the arms of her light pink kimono barely rippling as her arms moved.
 

James bowed low to her when she presented him with his tea, spouting off a fluent stream of Japanese that I couldn’t begin to follow, but he was obviously praising her.
 

I felt a completely unreasonable wave of jealousy.
 
I tamped it down, knowing that it was insane.
 
But his praise directed at anyone but myself made me feel covetous of it.
 

The woman flushed at his praise, making her pale beauty even more pronounced.
 

I bowed low to her as she presented the tea to me, stumbling over my Japanese thank you.
 
The woman was the epitome of grace, which made me feel a little clumsy just looking at her.
 

The woman left us alone after the drawn-out ritual was over, giving us the teahouse to ourselves.
 
I knew that deferential privacy was the James Cavendish effect.
 

I gave James a sidelong look, still sipping my tea.
 
He was watching me, and the look on his face made me squirm.
 
He wore a slight smile, but his eyes had gone full on Dom.
 

“It made you jealous, just having me watch her do the tea ceremony, didn’t it?
 
You’re that possessive of my affections now.”

I wrinkled my nose, wishing that he couldn’t read me quite so well.
 
It was embarrassing to me that he knew just how unreasonably jealous I could be.
 
I nodded.
 
There was no point in hiding it, since he’d seen it clearly.

“She’s beautiful, and you were fascinated by her,” I said, as though I couldn’t hold the words in.
 
“Did you want her?” I asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
 
I didn’t want to know if he did, and I didn’t want him to lie, so it was just masochistic to ask.

His eyes softened just a tad.
 
“No, Love.
 
The thought didn’t even cross my mind.
 
It did occur to me, though, that I would love for you to learn to do that.
 
The thought of you serving me with such restraint is intoxicating…”

“I could never do it like her.
 
She’s perfect.”

He ran his tongue over his teeth just so.
 
“I wouldn’t want you to do it like her.
 
I’d want you to do it like yourself.
 
What do you say?
 
Would you like a kimono and some tea ceremony lessons?”

I nodded with no hesitation.
 
“I’d love that.”

He smiled, reaching a hand up to cup the back of my head.
 
He moved into me.
 
“We’ll devote a morning to it, then.”

He kissed me, then pushed me to the floor, moving roughly on top of me.
 
He ground his hard erection into me, still fully clothed, while he ravished my mouth.
 
He showed none of his finesse as he gripped my hips and moved against me, biting hard on my lower lip.
 
It was as though he wanted to be as savage as possible, a perfect contrast to our refined surroundings.
 

He pulled away, sitting up to watch me.
 
His pretty mouth was a little mean as he smiled at me, running a hand through his hair.
 

“Stand up and take off your clothes.
 
Every scrap,” Mr. Cavendish told me.
 

I glanced around, a little shocked at the prospect, when I should be far beyond the point of shocking.
 
Perhaps it was the perfect manners of everyone we’d run into, but it seemed a little wrong to do something so crass in the serene teahouse.
 
Plus, there were open windows everywhere, and a good chance that we would be seen or heard.

“Can we?” I asked breathlessly.

That made him laugh, and as his Dom eyes played over my face I knew that he loved with a passion the scandalized look I now wore.
 
“I’ll do anything I please,” he told me.
 
“That was one of the
first
things you should have learned about me.
 
Now take off your clothes, or I’ll do something that really embarrasses you.