The Salaryman's Wife(91)

“Did I miss seeing the M.D. on your card?” I kicked off my shoes and descended on the sofa.

“I’m the king of sports injuries! My medicine chest has everything. Sticking plasters, hot packs, cold packs, anti-inflammatory tablets…”

“Good.” I reached under my skirt and began tugging down my pantyhose.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Hugh demanded.

“Wouldn’t someone descended from the Pagans know? Help me here, I can’t quite reach.” I laid my legs across his, leaving him to pull the stockings down the rest of the way. He shook them out and folded them into a small square.

“You’re so tidy you could get a job folding underwear at Mitsutan,” I teased, savoring the feeling of his hands gliding up the back of my thighs. The horror of the staircase seem very far away.

“I forgot which leg it was.” He appeared more flustered than I’d ever seen him, I realized with a rush of happiness.

“Should I turn over for you to look?”

“This game of yours, Rei, I can’t be held responsible.”

“It’s not a game. You owe me.” I leaned over and, very slowly, touched my lips against his. He held back for a second and then groaned, crushing me against him. By the time we broke, both our jackets were on the floor and he was regarding the safety pins cinching the waist (of my skirt with a tender expression.

“I thought you would never let me near you again,” he said.

“That’s not what you said to me in the English Pub.” It still hurt, remembering.

“I was trying to make it easier for you, more graceful.” He kissed his way down my neck.

“And you say I’m the one with tea ceremony manners! Tell me, are we staying on this slippery leather sofa all night?”

“I don’t expect you to come to my bedroom. There’s no rush.” Hugh sat back and looked at me.

“Why not? I was in there earlier today and it looks fine. You could move the rowing machine to a better place, but I liked the sumo wrestlers and your closet full of cashmere.” I was already unbuttoning his shirt.

“Even if that’s a back-handed compliment, I’ll take it.” His eyes locked with mine. “I’ll take you.”

True to his word, Hugh took a long time with me. It was after one o’clock when the last layers of clothing came off and we rolled across the sleigh bed. The next set of explorations seemed to last a century.

When Hugh finally entered me, he stopped midway and ran his finger across the wetness on my cheek. “Am I hurting you?” he whispered.

It wasn’t pain I felt, just a startling rush of emotion. I pulled him closer, whispering that if he didn’t start moving, I’d die. Had I known it would be like this? Yes, I thought as we began. There was no space between us anymore. With each stroke, I felt myself changing into something else, someone different.

“You’re my obsession.” The words choked out of Hugh as my body seemed to splinter off in a hundred different directions. I rode out the rest of his passion, soaring as his breath caught and he made a final great push.

Hugh curled his arms around me after he’d taken care of the condom. Both of us were breathing like we’d run for an hour.

“Was that the way you like it?” he murmured.

“I’d probably like it every way with you.” Just thinking about what had happened made me press my legs together.

“Why is it you can be so honest about sex and dishonest about your other feelings, so brutal to me?” The voice was warm and teasing, but I stiffened.

“You’re the brutal one, starting an argument when I’m lost in the most delicious afterglow.”

“Afterglow?” His tongue lapped at the back of my neck. “Who says it’s time for afters?”

“I thought men couldn’t, so soon…” I reached down to find evidence to the contrary.

“Let’s see what happens,” he suggested, and we did.


We must have slept briefly toward morning. In the next minute, it seemed, J-WAVE’s morning man was bellowing “London, eleven P.M.…Moscow, one A.M.…Tokyo, seven A.M. It’s Tokyo today!”

Hugh kissed my shoulder and floated the sheet off my body.

“Wakey, wakey, darling. Time to get up.”

“Why?” I moaned, covered my head with a down pillow.

“You’re going to sub for Richard’s class in two hours, and we can’t miss breakfast.”

“What are you, a morning person?” I lifted the pillow to squint at him.

He laughed. “It’s a very good morning because we’re going to change history, aren’t we?”