Her Singapore Fling (9 page)

'J
IANNE
,
what are you doing?' said Jake into the phone with what he thought was a great deal of restraint.

‘I'm not entirely sure,' she said. ‘Although I am standing here staring at a kitchen that would be a perfect fit for the space you have available. Madeline seems to think I'm nesting. I tend to agree. The problem being that it's your nest and I really don't want to intrude.'

‘Isn't it a little late for that?' he said dryly.

‘Not really. I'm also considering buying an apartment. Then I could put all the things I've just bought in it. That could potentially solve a world of problems.'

‘And Zhi Fu? Where does he fit into your apartment-buying plans?'

‘Probably straight across the corridor. Which isn't a comforting thought. I may need to buy something freestanding, which is not easy here in Singapore. Also not cheap. Even for me.'

‘Also not safe,' muttered Jake. ‘Especially for you.'

‘Exactly. Which is why Madeline suggested I call to see if you wanted a new kitchen, thus avoiding all other inappropriate purchases. They can have it installed in a day, and the surrounding walls painted, and floorboards sanded and polished as well.'

‘In a day,' said Jake sceptically.

‘One day,' said Jianne. ‘As in tomorrow. Although you won't be able to walk on the floorboards until the following day, by which time the paint should also have dried.'

‘Where
are
you?' he muttered.

‘Renovator's heaven.'

‘You really should leave there at once,' he said. ‘It's messing with your brain.'

‘And the kitchen?'

Jake closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Order the kitchen. Give me the shop's account details and I'll send through a deposit.'

‘Jacob—' He could hear the hesitation in her voice. ‘I'd very much like to pay for this kitchen, and downstairs living area refurbishment. As a gift to you and Po for welcoming me—however temporarily and possibly reluctantly—into your home.'

‘How much?' he asked curtly. ‘How much is all this going to cost?'

‘I haven't gone mad,' she said carefully, although she
was
paying a hefty premium for the speed at which the kitchen would be installed. ‘It's not some stainless-steel glory, and they're not furnishings no one would dare to use. They're in keeping with the dojo and the feel of the dojo. It'll be like bringing a little of what you've done with the space upstairs, downstairs. One of the couches is not even new.'

Couches? Plural? ‘You're buying
antiques
now? For
here
? I thought you were in a kitchen shop?'

‘We
are
in a kitchen shop,' she said soothingly. ‘Now.'

‘Tell her to get a wok burner,' said Luke. ‘They're great.'

‘Tell him of course there's a wok burner,' said Jianne. ‘No Singapore kitchen should ever be without one. Is there anything else you want to add?'

‘Yes,' muttered Jake grimly. ‘There better be tongs.'

 

Two hours later Jianne walked through the dojo and tentatively made her way towards the kitchen. Her bravado while in the kitchen shop had been replaced by a growing anxiety that she
had
overstepped Jacob's boundaries and was about to find out by exactly how much. She walked through the doorway and stopped, eyes widening, as she surveyed the carnage.

They hadn't stopped at one bedroom wall, they'd taken out the next one as well. Enough space for a proper kitchen and a big dining setting and living space as well now. Beautiful space that Jianne knew exactly how to fill. If Jacob would let her.

Noise from further down the long corridor of guest bedrooms and a distinct lack of kitchen ware or food in the kitchen suggested that one of those bedrooms was currently being used for storage. ‘Jacob?' she said.

‘In here.' He appeared in the hallway, a dusty and dishevelled labourer, from the plaster in his hair right down to his steel-capped boots. ‘Madeline not with you?' he asked silkily.

‘No, she's due back at work for a bit. She just dropped me off.' Jacob headed towards her and Jianne's pulse tripled. ‘Where's Po?'

‘Luke's.'

‘And your students?'

‘Gone for the day.'

‘This early?' His late class didn't usually finish until around seven. Jianne glanced at her watch. Seven fifty-nine. ‘Oh.' So much for keeping track of time and returning home to a house full of people. She tried a tentative smile. ‘I got you your tongs.'

‘Really?' The darkly amused challenge in Jacob's eyes left her in no way reassured. ‘What else did you get me?'

‘Hardly anything,' she said. Apart from the kitchen and the couches. And the sideboard and a few other bits and pieces he probably didn't need to know about until they arrived. ‘Much.'

‘I've been thinking about your offer to pay for it all,' murmured Jacob. ‘And my acceptance of that offer. I'm thinking that if you get to assert dominance in one area, I get to assert it in another. It's a balance thing.'

‘Balance?' she echoed.

‘Exactly.' He smiled a tiger's smile. ‘And dominance.'

‘You know, from where I'm standing you've pretty much got the dominance thing covered,' she offered. ‘What with being the sensei, and Po's mentor, and my protector and all.'

‘You forgot the sex,' he murmured, and took her shoulder bag and shopping bags from her. ‘Right this minute I'm aiming for dominance in that area as well.'

‘I'm really not sure it's possible to forget the sex, dominant or otherwise,' she offered soothingly. ‘Believe me, I tried for twelve years. It can't be done.' But Jake had set his lips to her jaw and his fingers had found the
curve of her spine, and Jianne closed her eyes and gave herself over to sensation and rising heat as she slid her hands beneath his shirt.

‘Hands off,' he muttered, although she noted he was all about being hands
on
.

‘About this revenge-sex plan because I dared to give you a gift I can well afford,' she said raggedly. ‘You should probably know that I didn't just buy you tongs, I bought a whisk and wooden spoons as well.'

Jacob's teeth grazed her neck and Jianne arched into him and let out a gasp.

‘Shower,' he murmured. ‘Now.'

‘You mean me?' She wasn't above making him work a little harder in order to secure her submission. Jacob thrived on a little hard work. ‘Was that an order? Because, speaking delicately, I'm really not the one in need of a shower here.'

Next thing she was being hauled over Jacob's shoulder, caveman style, which wasn't exactly comfortable but did have the advantage of giving her a spectacular view of his beautifully muscled back and rear. ‘You'll let me know if there's anything else you don't want me to buy for you, right?' she offered breathlessly as he headed for the stairs. ‘Because I think I feel a shopping spree coming on.' She traced the curve of his buttocks with her hands. ‘A really big one.'

‘Hands off.'

Next minute a spray of water hit her square on the butt. Jianne squealed. Jacob laughed, and set her down, and dragged her beneath the spray, fully clothed the pair of them as he captured her lips with his.

‘I was okay with the kitchen purchase, more or less,' he murmured as he shed his T-shirt and set to work on
the zipper of her trousers. ‘I was even okay with the tongs. But to buy a man a whisk and wooden spoons as well? Princess…' Jianne's trousers and panties went and so did her shirt and bra. Jacob's eyes darkened and his gaze fixed on her lips. His hands went to the fastenings of his own trousers and he smiled a sinner's smile. ‘That's going to cost you.'

 

'Someone's watching the dojo,' said Po later that evening as he slipped in the kitchen door, via the back alley and probably any one of the dozens of secretive ways in and out of the back alley itself.

‘Where from?' said Jake, shooting a lightning glance at Jianne. She had a tendency to get concerned about Po's nocturnal wanderings. Jake had a disturbing tendency to join her, though he was better at hiding it from the boy.

‘The office block across the road and a couple of doors down. Second window from the right, five storeys up.'

‘Could be just someone working late,' said Jake but the boy was already shaking his head.

‘No.'

Almost a week had passed since their encounter with Zhi Fu at the fundraiser ball. A new kitchen had gone in. A couple of couches and a muted silk floor rug had gone down in the living area adjoining it. Jacob's nights with Jianne still ran to glazed and passion-filled torment. Sitting down to meals that she and Po had prepared filled him with quiet delight. He didn't want a house full of people all clamouring for his attention—been
there, survived that—but this he could take. The order she brought to things. The quiet pleasure he took from it.

He'd thought he'd made a good life for himself here in Singapore. One that suited him remarkably well.

Well, now it was better.

Apart from a few niggly little things. An infatuated psychopath and Jianne's constant fear of what the man might do next being one of them.

‘Blinds closed upstairs?' he asked Jianne, but she seemed not to hear him. ‘Ji? You okay?'

‘Yes.' She nodded and smiled but her eyes remained troubled. ‘The blinds are open and so are the windows. It was hot up there this afternoon. I wanted to catch the breeze.'

‘There was breeze?' he said with a lift of an eyebrow. There hadn't been any downstairs. It had been one of those still and humid days that frayed tempers and left a body lethargic. His students had been slick with sweat within five minutes of starting an exercise. Shirts had come off and showers had been plentiful. One of his regular clowns had put in a request for some more of that lavender soap.

‘Well, no.' This time her smile was a little more genuine. ‘What do we do?' she said next. ‘About the watcher?'

‘Depends what we want him to see.'

Po bedded down early that evening. The kid rarely slept for more than a couple of hours at a time—the kid was largely nocturnal—but that was residual of a life lived on the street and there was nothing either man or
boy could do about it. Jake figured that Po planned to go walkabout tonight and see what a boy could see. He decided against sharing this suspicion with Jianne.

‘Do you think it's Zhi Fu?' she asked in a subdued voice as they headed upstairs.

‘Don't know.' Past caring. And when she went to press the switch that would close the blinds. ‘Don't.'

She glanced at him, startled. Jake smiled back, an edge of pure cruelty riding him hard. ‘If it is Zhi Fu watching us from that window, watching us now…What would you have him see?'

‘That I'll never be his.'

There was a remote control to the new blinds over by the bed. Jake found it and when he turned around Jianne stood watching him uncertainly from over near the chair. He headed towards her and held it out. ‘Take it,' he murmured.

She took it from him and when she did he trailed the back of his hand up her arm until he reached the strap of her pretty cotton top. He hooked his forefinger beneath the strap and began to drag it slowly down, moving around to stand behind her as he did so. Facing the windows now, both of them.

‘No,' she whispered as he set his other hand to her hip and drew her back against his hardness. ‘He'll see.'

‘Then close the blinds.'

Jianne gave a soft strangled moan of protest and relaxed back against him, tilting her head to allow his lips access to hers. He took it, open mouthed and famished and she responded with a sensual abandon that clawed at his control. She pressed the remote and dropped it on
the chair. The blinds began to close. Over sixty metres of high slatted windows ran along that wall. The blinds did not close quickly.

Jianne turned towards him slowly, her hands going to the hem of his T-shirt, pushing it up over his head to drop unnoticed to the floor. She set her hands to his stomach and her lips to the column of his throat. Possessively, knowingly, and he fisted his hands in her hair to keep her there. The blinds had still not closed.

Just before they finally did, Jake rested his cheek on Jianne's temple and slid his hands to the zipper of her skirt and looked up at that fifth floor window across the way from them and delivered a message.

Mine.

 

The following day started normally. Jake took his early class as usual, and then breakfasted with Jianne and Po before seeing Jianne off to work in a taxi. He sent Po's schoolwork tutor through to the back when he arrived and he wrote up next week's training schedule on the board. Po and the tutor would write it out in Chinese on a different board.

By mid afternoon the weather was building towards a storm fest and only the most dedicated of students had bothered to show for his three o'clock class. Three regulars, including Po, and one drop-in. The drop-in signed in as Tup and gave a Thailand address. The name didn't register with Jake. The address did. Tup's town boasted fighting pits backed by syndicate crime. The kind of pits that made death by hanging look like a kindness.

Jake showed Tup through to the changing rooms and then drew Po aside. ‘See if you can get hold of Luke,' he said. ‘Tell him to get over here. Now.'

Po left and Jake set his remaining students to warming up and working their way through the forms. It took all of two minutes to decide that Tup hadn't come to martial arts late in his twenty-something life. Tup moved with the effortless grace of someone who'd been steeped in The Way since birth.

Jake knew his own worth as a teacher. He ran a clean dojo. He brought out the best in his students, and his world championship wins ensured that he commanded respect and that he
did
have knowledge to pass on. Knowledge that students didn't necessarily get elsewhere. Jake didn't often come across a student who surpassed him but he had
nothing
to teach his newest student that Tup didn't already know.