Aim For Love (20 page)

“How do you know which voice to listen to?”

Kaz’s grandmother pressed back from the table and slipped her hands into the sleeves of her kimono, crossing her arms. “You see,” she said, nodding to Kaz. “She asks the right questions.” Obaa leaned toward her. “You train up your heart.” She pulled one hand out of her kimono sleeve and placed it over Sabrina’s heart. “Listen with this. Your heart will not steer you wrong.”

“But how do you train up a heart?” Sabrina was hooked now, wanted to know, had to know.

“Life does that for you.” Obaa rose and took their plates. “Just keep listening.”

Listen to her heart
.

But as she stole a glance at Kaz, Sabrina wasn’t sure she was prepared for what she’d hear.

No, that was a lie.

She was quite sure she wasn’t prepared to hear what her heart had to say.

Sabrina met Kaz in the graveled circle by the shrine. She’d changed out of the ill-fitting pants and kimono and now wore the shorts and thin-strapped tank top Obaa-chan had given him to deliver to her. The garments had never looked like that on his sister. He swallowed hard and composed his face. Whoever designed such clothing must know the effect the body-hugging garments had on men.

Of course they knew.

He dragged his thoughts back to the task at hand. “Did you nap?”

“Like someone knocked me out with a drug.”

“Dreams?” He could only hope that the
harai
had begun its work.

“Dreamless,” she answered, watching his face.

“So far so good, then.”

They’d only been apart two hours, but to him it felt like days. He didn’t tell her that he’d spent the best part of those two hours meditating, trying to center himself. Trying not to be taunted by thoughts of her.

In the earliest days of his training with his grandfather, he’d learned to control his body, to guard and focus his thoughts, to meld body and mind, to find harmony and harness power.

But the force she called up in him was beyond the reach of even his most focused discipline, beyond anything he’d ever felt or imagined. A power that cut deeper into him than any thrust of an enemy’s sword could have sliced.

Sabrina stretched her arms up with catlike grace and yawned. He dragged his eyes away from following the curve of her waist and hips, the fullness of her breasts under the thin tank top, and looked to her face. A smile curved there, and he was caught by it and the dreamy light in her eyes.

Yes, she had pierced him, and he burned. But it was sweet fire. And rather than consuming him, it simply burned steadily, feeding him with its power, sometimes raging, sometimes easing back, but always warming him.

“Your grandmother said you’d show me some aikido.” She ran her hand along the wooden pole that still held the webbed straps from their previous session. “But I had hoped to learn something of the samurai training you talked about.”

She stretched again and leaned back against the pole, pressing her face up into the sunlight. Was she
trying
to torture him? The fire in his groin reminded him all too well that though he was samurai, he was man first. If he had any illusions otherwise, the heat warming his blood and muddling his thoughts would keep him honest about that.

“Samurai is a lifelong practice, a whole body of disciplines—mental, physical, spiritual.” He planted his feet shoulder-width apart, willed himself to feel the earth under them. Called up the centered focus he’d practiced years to hone. “We have little time, Sabrina. It’ll be just the basics.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Then the basics will have to do.”

She copied his stance without him asking. It was no wonder she was an excellent actress—when she wasn’t self-conscious, she had an eye for movement, a body knowledge she could translate to visual action. He could work with that.

“Then let’s get started.” He drew himself up and extended his right arm. “Making the invisible visible generates great power.” He moved his hand through the air, extended his arm in front of him, and made a scooping motion and drew his hand back to his chest. “Reach out, take hold of the power that surrounds and supports you. Feel it.”

She copied his movement.

“Can you feel the energy?”

She made the motion again.

“Yes.”

“Now, as if it were a cape, draw the protective power around you and touch it to your heart.” He demonstrated the move—reaching out first, then scooping, then drawing his hand to his heart. And then he watched as she completed the identical motions.

When she touched her hand to her heart, she closed her eyes. Her lashes cast feathered shadows onto her cheeks. A gentle smile curved her lips as she opened her eyes.

“I
can
feel it, Kaz—the power. It’s…familiar. Like it’s always been there.”

“It always has. People don’t realize that the guiding, protective power is there for them, that they have only to access it, to call it in. Name it God or spirit, it’s there to guide, to safeguard, to support your life.”

He moved his hand from his heart and put both hands to his hips. “Do it again.”

She did, keeping her eyes open this time. He saw wonder dance in them, wonder and peace.

“Since you won’t likely be able to do this in public, I’m going to show you an abbreviated move—a gesture you can use anytime, anywhere.”

He put his hand to his heart. And tried to ignore the racing beat that her presence stirred there. “Place your hand over your heart. Rest it there and feel the life force.”

She did as he asked.

“Now, very slowly, remembering the feel of the power, turn your palm to face away from you and push your arm out and away, in an arcing motion. Like this.”

He demonstrated the heart shield move, and she copied him. He didn’t have to ask if she felt the power of the move; he could see it in her face.

“It’s like starting a pledge and then using the power it calls in to push away,” she said.

“Not quite. You aren’t pushing away, you are still casting the power around you—it’s just a smaller, more discreet gesture. Try again.”

This time he saw the energy spin around her, its light curving, hugging and protecting.

“Good.”

He kept any hint of surprise out of his voice. She didn’t need to know right then that she had a special talent for focusing energy; the knowledge might scare or confuse her. She could summon protective forces, that was what mattered.

“Now I’m going to show you the moves my grandmother wanted you to learn.”

“Finally.” She beamed with anticipation.

Kaz had often wished that the training Nari had benefitted from could be shared with all women. Modern culture could use a tune-up when it came to helping young women ramp up their self-esteem. Learning how to protect themselves was just scratching the surface, but at least self-protection was something that could be taught.

“I hope you’ll never need what I’m about to teach you. But sometimes just the act of preparation keeps negative forces at bay.”

Her smile faded.

He showed her the aikido moves, basics that she could use to unseat an attacker. She quickly grasped the concept of balance and of using her opponent’s power to her advantage. He was careful of her shoulder, but she moved well and he was pleased with her progress.

But he wasn’t in any way pleased with his own. Every move she made sliced a spike of desire through him. He was honor bound to help her, he repeated to himself. Acting on the desire she fired was not the way of Bushido. It took all of his concentration to dampen the flame that wanted to ignite, wanted to leap to life, and confine it to the lowest possible simmer.

By the end of the session, he was sure he was more exhausted than she was.

After a light dinner, Kaz left Obaa-chan and Sabrina talking on the porch and went up to his bedroom. Sabrina wanted to know every detail of his grandmother’s life and Obaa-chan seemed delighted to tell her. He, on the other hand, had heard the stories. And he found that watching the two of them fired more than memories.

With each smile and laugh and question, Sabrina pierced another hole in the wall he’d erected years ago. After losing Stacy, he’d sworn to never be that vulnerable again. Swearing the vow to his grandfather to marry a Japanese woman had made it that much easier to keep his distance from women. But as he heard Sabrina’s bell-like laughter, he knew easy wasn’t in his future. Not at all. If things kept going at this rate, he’d be the next one needing
harai
.

He took a cold shower and then tried to channel his jagged energy by repeating a series of strenuous jujitsu exercises beside his bed. The exercises would increase his strength and balance for the upcoming spring training—would put more power into his fastball—but they did nothing to banish Sabrina from his body or his mind. After the hundredth round, he gave up.

He threw open the window to let in the night air. It rippled cool against the perspiration beaded on his chest.

A knock sounded lightly at his door.

The racket he’d been making for the past hour and a half had probably kept his grandmother from sleeping.

He opened the door, ready to apologize. And looked straight into Sabrina’s deep blue eyes.

“Sabrina.” He stepped back, almost involuntarily.

“Were you expecting someone else?”

“Um…no. I…”

“May I come in?”

The smile playing across her face flustered him and scattered any words he might’ve had at his command. He stepped aside, and she entered his room and crossed to the window.

She looked out before turning back to him.

“There’s a lovely full moon tonight,” she said.

With the moonlight at her back, he couldn’t see her face.

“Yes.”

“I wanted to thank you.” She took a small step toward him. “For what you did today. What you’ve done all along.”

She simply stood there. The kimono they kept for guests was short on her, revealing the curves of her calves. She’d belted it loosely, and the vee in the front drew his eye. He wanted to know what was hidden there.

No, he wanted to
see
what was hidden beneath the crossed fabric. See and touch and taste.

“That’s not necessary.”

She blushed. “Yes, well, I wanted more than that.”

He should send her back to her room. He
would
send her back to her room. But the words wouldn’t come.

She slid her hand to the belt of the kimono and tugged. The fabric parted and the kimono fell away. Moonlight silhouetted her naked body. His breath caught in his throat, and his body paid no attention to his mind saying no.

“And I assure you,” she said as she stepped toward him, “I am
very
much awake.” She touched her palm to his chest, over his heart, and looked up at him from under her lashes. “This time.”

She raised her other hand to his neck and pressed up onto her toes to reach his lips. In the trembling heat of her kiss, something inside him snapped. The resolve he’d fought so long to hold dissolved. His hands moved with a mission that had burned in them since the first day he’d seen her. Her lips parted with the force of his thrusting tongue. If passion had a taste, it would be the honey sweetness of Sabrina’s kiss. She arched against him, pressing her breasts to his chest. Through the thin cotton of his pants, his erection throbbed hard against her belly. She moaned against his lips and he was undone.

He bent, reached under her naked bottom and lifted her up without breaking the contact of their kiss. Life pulsed there, in her lips, life and promise. A promise for a love he’d never known he wanted. A love that had sneaked up on him, stealthier than any opponent could have managed.

As he lowered her to the bed, she pulled her lips from his.

He felt like he’d been unplugged from the force of life itself. He knelt beside her, his knees touching the lush curve of her hip.

“Sabrina—”

She pressed onto her elbows and then raised herself to kneel. She touched her fingertip to his lips.

“No, Kaz. No words.” She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed closer. “Just show me.”

Vows be damned.