Sweet Seduction Sayonara by Nicola Claire

from the back door of ASI, but then Jason is standing in the doorway watching my back. He doesn’t retreat inside until I’ve started the engine and driven off down the drive. I come out on Remuera Road beside the railway tracks and turn left instead of right.
    I turn for home. I can’t face work right now. I flick a message off to my secretary and one to Dom and Drew, letting them know I’m not well and taking the day off. I never take the day off, so the phone lights up immediately with Dom’s name on the screen.
    I send it to voicemail.
    I’m not sure what I’m feeling. Scared. Yes, I’ll admit it. Confused. Definitely. But there’s something else there and I can’t get a bead on it. I’m too imbalanced to know what it is.
    I reach across the car to the glove compartment and search around while driving for a spare pack of cigarettes. I never smoke in the car. I always park up and get out if I feel the need for a quick one. But I’m not unlocking this fucking door. So I shake out a smoke, light it while I’m driving, and crack the window enough for me to exhale.
    The drive home passes by in a mix of dread, angst, anger and contemplation. I’m so fucking pissed at the Triads, that I’m almost convinced I should find their address and turn up at their door. But I’m also not suicidal.
    And it’s not until I pull into my driveway and see someone sitting on my front step that I realise what’s really motivating me right now.
    I’m worried. I’m out of my mind worried for Momoko.
    Because what has she gotten herself into? What has she done to piss these guys off? And why isn’t Koki helping her? Sure, he disappeared the van and the thugs, but from what I saw, he simply told her to go home to daddy.
    But Momoko Tanaka is not one to blithely follow instructions. How can she be when she’s sitting on my front doorstep, waiting for me to come home.
    It’s the middle of the day, so how she knows I’d be pulling into my drive right now, I don’t know. Nor do I care. I slip out of the car, leaving it out of the garage and walk the short distance to where she’s now standing.
    The minute I get there, I wrap my hand around the back of her neck and pull her hard against my chest and kiss her.
    She doesn’t say no.
    Instead she clings to me and kisses me back just as desperately. Just as passionately. Just as enthusiastically. I kiss her with frustration and lust and worry and a little anger. I kiss her for so long that we pull apart gasping for air.
    “Are you OK?” we both say at exactly the same time as each other.
    She nods. I make a grunting sound. And then my hand slips into hers and I’m opening the front door and dragging her inside.
    Thank fuck Eric hasn’t arrived yet.
    Our clothes are off before I even think to check the lock on the door. A condom on and her legs wrapped around my hips by the time the deadbolt has been reset. And then it’s just a frenzy of bumping and grinding and thrusting and rocking and moans and gasps and her screaming my name as she comes and me fucking losing it as I climax, the door rattling against its hinges as I slow my thrusts down and come back to the room at last.
    “Momo,” I say, my forehead resting against hers.
    “Where’s your bedroom?” she asks. And I’m off down the hallway, bursting into the master room, and following her down onto the crisp, thank-fuck-clean bedsheets.
    “We shouldn’t be doing this,” I say, even as I start to replace the used condom with a new one.
    “Screw the rules,” she counters trying to help me.
    I burst out laughing as our hands get tangled and she swears something surprisingly long in Japanese and then I’m slipping inside her again. Finding heaven.
    I take it more slowly this time. I follow her signals, the map she gives me with her sighs and moans and trembling. I don’t fuck her. I make love to her. And I’m not sure why, but I do know that I can’t walk away from this woman. From this mess that she’s in. From