Seventeen

Jason spent the better part of the day sitting at a table with Alex Nolan, the two of them signing reams of documents while lawyers and Realtor supervised. A preliminary design-build agreement, letters of intent concerning purchase and sale, qualifying language, timing of events and obligations and ownership transfer. Jason signed each efficiently and without hesitation.

He had wanted to establish a learning institute ever since his first big success at Inari, understanding that he had to do something good in the world before he left it. He saw no point in accumulating wealth for its own sake. Better to use the money to create a place where people could find connection and community, and learn things that would make their lives better.

The decision to establish the institute on San Juan Island was made all the easier by the fact that he would be closer to Justine. Thoughts of her lingered in his mind like a soft autumnal perfume, earth and leaves and rain. He and she were right for each other in the same way darkness was complemented by light, night by day. Inyodo was the Japanese word for it. If Justine were willing to make a place for him in her life, he would stop at nothing to be with her.

As the day progressed, Jason was disgruntled but not surprised to discover that Justine wasn’t returning his calls. According to Zoë, Justine had gone for the day. Jason knew exactly why Justine didn’t want to face him yet. She was trying to come to terms with what had happened—and no doubt figuring out a strategy to deal with him.

Reining in his impatience, he packed for the morning’s departure. As evening approached and there was still no sign of Justine, Jason went out to dinner with the rest of the Inari group. Alex and his fiancée, Zoë, had agreed to join them in celebrating the preliminary signing for the Dream Lake development.

“I haven’t heard from Justine today,” Jason said casually to Zoë during dinner. “I hope everything’s okay.”

“Yes, she’s fine,” Zoë said, a blush infusing her porcelain skin. “She was busy with errands.”

“All day?” Jason couldn’t resist asking.

Zoë looked flustered and vaguely apologetic. She replied in an undertone that no one else at the table could hear. “Justine said she needed some time alone.”

“What kind of mood was she in?”

“She was … quiet.” Zoë hesitated before adding, “She said that having a wish come true was one of the worst things that had ever happened to her.”

Jason gave her a puzzled glance. “What did she wish for?”

After a long hesitation, Zoë replied without looking at him. “I think it was you.”

* * *

The lights in Justine’s cottage were on when Jason returned to the inn after dinner. He waited until the inn was settled and still before walking across the lawn. The night was clear, stars blinking as if to semaphore-coded messages. The scythe-shaped moon was angled to cut a swath through the dark sky. A nightjar cried in a low churr as it chased moths into the shadows.

Jason knocked at the front door. His stomach had contracted into a tight knot. He was accustomed to taking risks. In the past he’d agreed to business deals involving unthinkable sums of money, and launched games that would bury the company if they flopped. He’d handled it all without flinching. But nothing had ever unnerved him like the prospect of losing Justine.

The door opened slowly to reveal Justine with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face clean-scrubbed. There was something damaged in her posture, a slump like a broken flower stem. He was filled with the desire to comfort her, give her respite and pleasure and ease.

“I missed you today,” he said.

She swallowed audibly. “I had errands.”

Jason lifted a hand to her tense jaw, gently tilting her face upward to stare into her tired eyes. “Talk to me for five minutes. Please. I can’t leave tomorrow morning without us settling a couple of things.”

Justine started to shake her head before he had finished the sentence. “There’s nothing to settle.”

Jason stared at her, considering his options. Charm. Seduction. Bribery. Begging was not out of the question. “There’s at least one thing.”

“What?”

He said in a businesslike tone, “I’m here to complain about my room.”

Her eyes slitted open. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The bed is too hard. And the sheets are scratchy.” Seeing that Justine was going to argue with this assessment of her luxurious guest accommodations, he added, “And my orchid’s wilting.”

“Try putting water on it.”

“My bed?”

Justine tried to look severe. “Your orchid. I can’t do anything about the bed. Besides, you’re an insomniac, so you don’t sleep anyway.”

“I want to hold you tonight,” he said. “No sex. I just want to lie next to you while you sleep.”

Her expression didn’t change, but he thought he saw a spark of amusement in her eyes. “Like hell.”

“Okay, I want sex,” he admitted. “But after that, I would let you sleep.”

The hint of a smile faded. “I can’t be with you again. And don’t make me explain, because you know why.”

Jason reached out for her, unable to hold back any longer. “It’s not all your decision. It’s mine, too.”

“There’s nothing you can say—”

“Tell me what you want, Justine. Not what you’re afraid of, not what you’ve already decided. Just what’s in here.” He slid one hand to the center of her chest and flattened his palm over her rapidly beating heart.

She shook her head, looking unsettled but stubborn.

“You’re not going to admit it?” he asked, tenderly mocking. “What a little coward. I’ll say it for you, then: You want me. You’re in love with me. Which means that I’m already living on borrowed time.”

“Don’t say that,” Justine snapped, trying to push away from him, but he wouldn’t let her. He hugged her close, surrounding her with his warmth.

“I’m a dead man walking,” he said, his voice muffled in her hair. “A goner. My goose is cooked. My number’s up. I’m Screwdini.”

“Stop it!” she cried. “How can you joke about this?”

His arms tightened. “One of the few advantages of not having a soul is that you have no choice except to live in the moment. And any moment that I have you in my arms is a good one.” He kissed her hair. “Let me in, Justine. It’s lonely out here.”

Justine went still. She took a long, broken breath. When she looked up at him, her eyes glittered with some strong emotion. “Just for a few minutes,” she said, and stepped back as he crossed the threshold.

As soon as she closed the door, he hauled her close until they were pressed front to front. He took Justine’s wrists and pulled them around his neck. Her breath was fast and anxious against his skin.

“Help me do what’s right,” she begged.

“This is what’s right.” Jason cupped his fingers around the back of her skull, guiding her head to his shoulder. It felt insanely good to hold her, the embers of last night dancing into fresh flame. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said, “but I’m coming back in a week or less. I just have to make some arrangements.”

“Arrangements for what?”

“Restructuring. There’s no reason I can’t delegate some of my responsibilities at Inari. The stuff that only I can do, I’ll either handle remotely or it can wait until I make it back to the office.”

Justine sounded dazed. “What are you trying to say?”

Jason traced the delicate rim of her ear with his thumb, and kissed her earlobe. “I want to be part of your life. I have to be. Since you have to stay at the inn to do your job, I’ll come to the island as often as I can.”

“Where … where are you planning on staying?”

“That depends on you.”

“I want you to go away. For good.”

“Because you don’t care about me? Or because you do?”

Justine didn’t respond, didn’t look at him. He continued to hold her, trying to interpret her silence.

“I lose everyone I care about,” she eventually said. “I lost my father before I ever got to know him. I lost my mother because I couldn’t be what she wanted. I lost Duane because he couldn’t handle what I am. Now you’re asking me to care about you, knowing I’m going to lose you, too. Well, I can’t.” Defeat gave each word the weight of a brick, to be used in the wall she was building between them. Wriggling out of his arms, she turned away.

He would have her, and damn anything that got in the way. God knew he’d never been a man to back down from a fight.

“Are you worried about the possibility that I might die?” he asked. “Or the chance that I might not?”

Justine whirled to face him, her face reddening as the implication sank in. “You as**ole!” she exclaimed.

“What if I don’t?” he persisted, turning ruthless. “What if I stick around long enough for you to have to deal with a real relationship? Compromise, intimacy, forgiveness, sacrifice … could you handle all that? You don’t know.”

Justine glared at him. “You won’t be here long enough for me to find out.”

“Everyone’s got an expiration date,” he said. “When you love someone, you take your chances.”

Justine covered her face with her hands, clearly not above a touch of drama. “I’m trying to do what’s best for you, you obnoxious bonehead.”

He gripped her against him, letting her feel his strength, his steady determination. “You’re what’s best for me. And I’m not going to turn tail and run because of some crazy superstition.”

“It’s not a superstition, it’s … it’s supernatural causality. It’s going to happen. And don’t try to claim you don’t believe in the paranormal, Mr. I-don’t-have-a-soul.”

Jason smiled. “As a Buddhist, I don’t have to be consistent.”

Justine made an infuriated sound and tried to push him away, but he kept her against him easily. He bent to kiss her, opening her mouth with his. Justine quivered and went pliant against him, her hands groping over his back. He could feel a subtle vibration running through her, fervency barely contained in stillness. He wanted to be inside that energy, driving it higher, hotter.

Breaking the kiss, he breathed in the soft fragrance of her neck, letting it tease his senses. “Let me stay with you tonight.”

Her voice was muffled. “No way in hell.”

“Give me one night. If you tell me tomorrow morning that you still want me to leave you, I will.”

“You’re lying.”

“I swear I won’t come back unless you ask me to.”

She maneuvered in his arms until she could see his face. “What are you planning?” she asked warily. “Why do you think one night will make a difference?”

Eighteen

The way Jason stared at her made her uneasy. She didn’t trust the glint in his eyes. “I already know you’re good in bed,” she continued. “There’s nothing left to prove in that department.”

“I want to try something with you,” he said. “It’s a kind of … ritual.”

“Ritual,” she repeated, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

“It’s called Kinbaku.”

The foreignness of the word, three distinct and precise syllables, tapped delicately on her eardrums and made her shiver.

“Is that something sexual?”

“Something physical. It doesn’t have to be sexual, if you don’t want it to be.”

Mystified, Justine chewed on the insides of her lips. “What does that word mean?”

A faint smile touched his lips. “It’s translated as ‘the beauty of tight binding.’ Do you have any cord or thin rope?”

“Yes, I keep some in my closet for—” Justine stopped, her eyes turning huge. “Are we talking about bondage? No. No, I don’t have any rope.”

“You just said you did.”

“Not for that. I don’t like pain.”

“There’s no pain involved. It’s…” He paused, clearly considering how to convey the meaning of a Japanese word when there was nothing in English to approximate it. “It’s artistic. Ropework shaping the body into a living sculpture. The basic form is Shibari, but it becomes Kinbaku when emotion is involved.”

Justine wasn’t buying it. “That sounds like a sophisticated way of saying you want to truss me up like a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store deli. And I don’t see the point.”

“It’s like trying to explain the point of skydiving or skiing to someone who’s never done it. You have to experience it to understand.”

“Have you ever done it before?”

His face was inscrutable. “I was involved with a woman in Japan who introduced me to it. There are shows where Shibari is performed as an art form, not to mention seminars—”

“What kind of woman?” Justine asked, surprised by the bitter tang of jealousy. “Like an escort service woman or—”

“No, not at all. She was an executive at a software company. Smart, successful, and very beautiful.”

That hardly eased her jealousy. “If she was so great, why did she let you do that to her? Wasn’t she—” Justine broke off and swallowed audibly. “Ashamed?”

“There’s no shame in a willing exchange of power. The ropes are an extension of the dominant partner … he uses them to hold a woman, focus on her … guide her into deeper layers of surrender. My partner said that when she was restrained on the outside, it allowed her to be unrestrained on the inside. It revealed things she’d never known about herself.”

Their gazes held, the silence charged and impellent.

Justine didn’t know what to say. She was amazed by her own reaction, the darts of heat that went through her. She had to admit that she was intrigued. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would end well. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to refuse.

“I can do that for you,” Jason said, “if you’re willing to trust me.”

Her lips had gone dry. “Should I?”

“I hope you will.”

“That’s not a yes.”