Naked Sushi (4 page)

I’d grant him one thing, though. Up close and personal fit him. The burning in my belly reminded me
how
personal.

“It will take more than lunch in a Japanese restaurant to convince me you’ve got these contacts,” Mr. Briggs said, picking up his chopsticks and grabbing a wiggly piece of octopus off my stomach. Yuk. “Though I admit using the body of a beautiful woman to please the eye is innovative.”

“
Very
beautiful,” the stud said, surprising me.

Beautiful? Me?

Nah. He didn’t mean it. He was cozying up to Mr. Briggs. That was all.

They chattered on for endless minutes. Another businessman sat down at our table and ordered a beer. I paid him no mind. I was waiting for the right moment to get Mr. Briggs’s attention. My sixty-minute gig was almost over. Another model would be here soon to replace me.

Finally, the moment came when I saw the stud from the copy room turn around to order drinks from the kimono-clad waitress.

“Hey, Mr. Briggs,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth. “It’s me.”

“Who?” he asked, choking on the octopus.

“Pepper O’Malley. I used to work for you.” I rushed my words. “I’m a software programmer. Video games, commercials. I’m the whiz kid who rewrote all the codes for the
Dragon Beware
game after the last guy screwed them up.”

“I—I have no idea what you’re talking about, young lady.” My ex-boss looked flustered, pulling at his collar, his walruslike double chin tripling in size. “I don’t know you.”

“Yes, you do. Your office manager fired me after this bozo sitting next to you cornered me in the copy room—”

Mr. Briggs glared at the customer dribbling soy sauce on my thigh.

“No, not
him
,” I sputtered, giving the jerk a dirty look when he smeared the salty mixture on my leg. “The guy ordering drinks.”

“How did you know I was here?” Mr. Briggs whispered, the angry look in his eyes telling me he
did
recognize me.

“That’s not important. I want my job back—” I clammed up when the stud turned back around and handed Mr. Briggs an Echigo beer.

“Imported from Japan,” the stud said.

I rolled my eyes. Mr. Briggs was not a Miller-time kind of guy. Expensive champagne was more his style, according to the accounts I saw on his computer.
Very
expensive. And here I thought he was a cheapskate. The company was doing better than I imagined.

Not Mr. Briggs. He looked like he was about to throw up. I wasn’t sure if he looked sick because of what I’d said to him or the ice-cold beer staring him in the face.

“How come the model can flirt with you and not with me?” said the jealous customer, sticking his chopsticks straight up in his rice bowl. Bad manners in a Japanese restaurant.

“She’s
not
flirting with me.” Mr. Briggs put down the beer and wiped the sweat off his face with his monogrammed napkin. “She—she used to work for me.”

I cringed.

This was getting dicey. The stud was giving me the eyeball, his eyes questioning, his heated glance moving over my heaving breasts and then down to my crotch. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Mr. Briggs turned to him. His voice shook as he said, “I think we should finish our business elsewhere.” He threw down his napkin and then got up from the table and left.

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Mr. Briggs,” said the stud, nodding toward the quiet customer about to grab a slice of avocado off my shoulder. Without changing his deadpan expression, the man put down his chopsticks, got up and followed Mr. Briggs.

I couldn’t believe it. They were working together.

My back stiffened. So what happened now? They roughed up Mr. Briggs in a dark alley? Stole his credit cards? Drove him to the ATM and mugged for the security cameras?

I wasn’t prepared for the stud’s next move.

“Well, if it isn’t the sassy redhead from the copy room,” he said with a smirk. He grabbed a spicy tuna roll off my thigh and ate it in a sensual manner, smacking his lips and rolling his tongue.

“Surprised to see me?” I quipped.

“I didn’t recognize you without your glasses.” His dark eyes roamed up and down my nearly nude body. The look in his eyes was hot enough to burn the flower petals to cinders. In a low, sexy voice he said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Trying to get my job back,” I shot back at him. “Until you screwed it up,”

I’d rather die than let him know how seeing him again affected me.

He slid his chopstick under the flowers covering my breasts in the pretext of grabbing a slice of fish, rubbing my bare skin and sending tiny sparks through me. I clamped my legs together.

Damn, why did he have to do that?

“You shouldn’t interfere in matters that don’t concern you,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t seduced me.”

“
I
seduced
you?
” He laughed. “You’re the one who tried to convince me you’re as hot as your name.” He leaned over and dangled a chopstick dipped in hot wasabi over my quivering tummy. “Pepper, isn’t it?”

“I’m surprised you remember.”

“That’s not
all
I remember,” he insisted, pulling yellow flower petals off my breasts with his chopsticks, one by one.

“Hey, sister, talk to me, too,” yelled the disgruntled customer at the end of the table, grabbing his chopsticks out of the rice bowl.

“The lady isn’t talking to anyone.” The stud jabbed me in the buttock. I winced. “
Anyone
, is that clear?” he said. “Or she’ll find herself swimming with the fishes instead of lying with them.”

“You can’t threaten me,” I said in a clear voice, though I was shaking inside. “If anything happens to Mr. Briggs, I’ll go straight to the police and tell them what happened in the copy room.”

“Everything?” he said, egging me on.

“
Everything.
”

“You want your job back that bad?”

“Yes. I—I need the money to pay my rent. And to eat. I don’t get to take home the leftovers.”

He looked surprised. “You’re not kidding me, are you?”

I shook my head.

For a moment, a look of tenderness came over his face and I almost trusted him. Almost.

Then he retrieved a wad of bills that made my eyes bug out, peeled off several and stuffed them into my hand. “Now we’re even. Keep your mouth shut or Mr. Briggs won’t be walking so good.”

I could feel the crinkly bills filling my palm, tempting me, but that wasn’t my style. I tossed the hundred-dollar bills down on the black velvet table. “I don’t take bribes.”

“Consider it a tip.”

“I’m not allowed to take tips,” I said, echoing Cindy’s words.

The unhappy customer tried to pinch a hundred with his chopsticks, but the stud was faster. He grabbed the wad and stuffed the bills back into his pocket.

Snickering, he turned and said to me, “I’ll see you around...
Pepper
.” Then he grabbed another tuna roll off my thigh and jammed out of the restaurant before I could say sayonara.

* * *

I kept pressing the on button on my cell phone, but nothing happened. It was dead. Damn, they shut off my service. I told them I’d pay them soon. A lot of good
that
did me. How was I going to call for help? There was no pay phone in the dressing room or anywhere in the restaurant.

I grabbed the short pink kimono Cindy had left hanging on the door and put it on and then peeled off the yellow flower petals sticking to my breasts. The thick adhesive tape smarted when I pulled it off. I let the kimono hang loose as I walked around the dressing room, pressing the button and then sliding and tapping my fingers all over the screen, trying to make it work—

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

I spun around. It was him.

Looking angry but gorgeous. I let out a deep sigh. Why did this guy have to be so damned good-looking? I almost wished we were back in the copy room. Me with my butt up in the air and him behind me, sliding down my jeans.

That was before I knew he was a thief. I couldn’t drop my guard around him.

Not this time.

“Did you forget something?” I said, cocky.

“Yes.
You
.”

“What?” I asked, not understanding.

“I had a feeling you wouldn’t follow my orders.” He came closer; I stepped back. “Put down that phone.”

“What if I don’t?” I said, stalling. I pretended to text a message on a screen that was darker than my roots. Lucky for me he couldn’t see that.

“I’ll have to take you with me.”

Oh, my God, he was going to kidnap me.

“Like hell you are.”

In spite of my wild attraction to this hottie, I had no desire to become a missing person statistic.

I ran for the tiny bathroom, hoping to lock myself in, when he did some fancy martial arts move on me and knocked the cell phone out of my hand. When I leaned over to pick it up, he grabbed me around the waist and then reached inside my short pink kimono and pinched my nipples.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you lying on that table looking as sexy as hell,” he said with a big smile.

“Why don’t you take your hot chopsticks and go play somewhere else,” I said, shooting him a cool “I’m not interested” look. I refused to let him turn me on.

Instead, I tried to kick him in the balls.

He anticipated my maneuver and backed away with a hip-hop move any rapper would envy and sidestepped my foot.

“You vixen,” he said, growling. Then he grabbed me around the ankle and knocked me off balance. I slid down to the floor, landing on my butt.

“Ye—ow!” I cried out.

“Ready to give up?” he asked, staring at me.

“No way, José.”

Winded, I started kicking wildly with my bare feet, my kimono open and spread around me. I pushed out my chest, my nipples pointing straight up, begging for him to bite them. Hoping he’d take the bait so I could try out the karate chop I learned in a self-defense class. I had no time to lose. My ex-boss could already be hogtied and quartered in a dark alley like a bluefin tuna ready for market.

“You leave me no choice, Pepper,” he said in a husky voice. Before I could take a breath, he sat on me, grabbing my wrists and slapping handcuffs on me with the finesse of a man used to tying women up.

“
Let go of me!
” I yelled.

“Not until you calm down, you little hellcat.”

“Then what are you going to do?” I asked. “Make raw sushi out of me?”

“You almost ruined six months of work with your sex games.”

“Sex games?” I said. “
You’re
the one stalking Mr. Briggs. Breaking into the company offices and seducing a helpless employee—”

“You? Helpless?” He laughed. “I’ve never seen a woman with so much fire in her.”

That gave me an idea. A smart girl would use her sex appeal to talk her way out of this situation.

I slowed my breathing and changed my tactics. “You’re not going to leave without satisfying me....” I licked my lips, nice and easy, my tongue making a wet circle around my open mouth. “Are you?”

He crossed his brows, and I swore I saw a flicker of interest in his eyes. It quickly disappeared. “You can’t blame a guy for wanting to make love to a beautiful woman, Pepper. But I’d never leave her hanging, unless my ass was on the line.”

“You mean
my
ass.”

“Don’t be so squeamish,” he said, making light of my misery. “You know the drill. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Nothing more.”

Inside I was hurting from his remark, but I kept my game-face on. I refused to let him see how much his words stung me. “I don’t believe you. A man doesn’t come like you did if it’s only a quickie.”

“It’s a perk in my line of work,” he said with a snicker.

“Oh, yeah? Who do you work for?” I dared to ask him. “A syndicate? A rival software company? Or are you just an ordinary thief?”

I saw his mouth set in a firm line, his breath coming faster. I’d hit a nerve.

“There’s nothing ordinary about me.” He gripped my wrists tighter, the sheer power of being helpless stimulating me, though in this situation my primal urges were better left suppressed.

“Oh?” I teased him. “I don’t remember. Show me.”

“I didn’t come back here to make love to you—”

“C’mon, fuck me. I dare you.” I wiggled, making my breasts bounce up and down, giving him an eyeful. I refused to panic. Keep him talking. “I bet you can’t get it up again.”

“Your game won’t work, Pepper. I have a job to do and you’re in the way.”

Uh-oh. I didn’t like the way he said that. Like I was about to get tossed out of a speeding car in the middle of the night. I would have wet my panties if I was wearing any. I wasn’t. In my mind, a thong didn’t count.

I saw him reach into his jacket pocket. I tried to scream, but he clamped his hand over my mouth, shutting off my air. I struggled while he ripped the pink silk belt off my thin kimono and gagged me with it.

“This will keep you quiet,” he said. I kicked him in the shin, making him yelp. “
Damn
, I’ve never had so much trouble with a woman. Why didn’t you mind your own business?”

I twisted and turned my body, going wild. What did I have to lose? He was going to plug me with a bullet between the eyes anyway.

I couldn’t believe my luck when Cindy burst through the door.

“Pepper, I got the job—” She screamed when she saw him sitting on me, my hands cuffed and pulled up over my head, my mouth gagged. “Don’t anybody move,” she cried out as if she were auditioning for a cop drama. “I’m calling the police.”

“Stay right where you are, miss,” the stud ordered her, pulling a gold badge and ID out of his coat pocket and shoving them into her face. “Special Agent Steve Raines, FBI.”

“
Oh
,
my God
, Pepper,” Cindy gasped, her hand going to her mouth. “What have you done now?”

No, no, no. I twisted my head back and forth, trying to get the gag off, tell her the badge was a fake. Had to be. He would have told me that night in the copy room if he was working for the FBI, right?