MS
Disclaimer: Do not own any of the CCS characters.
Sugar Daddy
Chapter 10: Elevator Ride
In their own way, they were trying to decipher one another by their corresponding stares. There was a lot of indecision as their eyes searched their expressions for just a glimmer of something they couldn't define. Or quite put into words either.
This was an uncomfortable silence. Sakura's arms hurt as they were tightly woven around the box. She had picked it up on her way up from the car as she'd gotten a message that there were a couple of things that were going to be making their way up to the office.
Seeing Syaoran, as she thought of the name, she had the urge to throw the box at his head and hearing a satisfying clunk as it connected. Sakura had always had a true aim in sports so she didn't have to worry about actually succeeding.
Although really, she just wanted to be alone. He seemed to oblige her silent request as he took his companion by the arm, spiriting her out of her way and out of the hallway. Sakura looked back, seeing him shuffle her off to a corner where he started speaking to her in a tone that she was very familiar with. Sakura wondered if he knew that he behaved just like his father in this setting with an urge to manage everything and everyone around him.
His father. Anger spurt at her. There were just so many wrong things said and done with this particular issue she didn't deign to try to count them off or she would start getting into a temper. Who would she blame though? What the hell was going on around here?
She walked the remaining steps to the elevator, where she had seen them emerge if her collision with Syaoran was correct, punching the button. She hoped her reading of his body language wasn't correct. She was very sure he was going to come back, and of course expecting her to still be there to stare derisively at. She had seen it in the glare he had thrown back before rounding the bend of the corner and taking him and the blonde out of her sight.
The blonde was another matter. Sakura was a very quiet person, but that didn't mean she couldn't read the undercurrents of her speech. There had been maliciousness in her tone at the end that she really hadn't tried to hide from either of them. Who the hell was she? How did she figure into this farce?
Because a farce it was. "He's the son of my boss," the statement was wrong in every way she could conceive. She hoped the elevator arrived soon before she made a spectacle of herself in the hallway of the first floor of the building where everyone could see her. She had barely been inside the building for over an hour to have this sort of calamity sprung on her.
She snorted as the ding announced the door opening. Who cared if Syaoran had wanted to keep her there so that he could just come back and glare at her some more? She had deciphered blame and somehow pain in his expression when he had stared at her, and that was always bad in her opinion. It irritated the crap out of her too. How did he justify projecting those feelings at her?
The doors remained open as she entered the elevator, placing her card in the slot and pressing the key so that the doors would close and take her to her desired floor.
"Sakura!" he was storming back, his eyes blazing as the elevator doors started to close. "Keep that door open!"
It was a perverse satisfaction to hit the button for them to close as he came closer. The elevator started moving as it snapped quite clearly in his face. It had been petty, but it had definitely felt good. She had a feeling it was going to be one of the few satisfactions she would ever receive against Syaoran Li, Negotiator Extraordinaire and CEO of Li Enterprises.
Syaoran hit the doors of the elevator, swearing as he heard the telltale sounds of it moving beyond the closed doors. He didn't feel very professional at that moment to care over the image he was currently presenting. His employees could see him acting like a loon once in their lives; it wasn't going to kill them or him. And really, anyone would do so at this moment.
He bolted to the stairs, hoping somehow that somewhere the elevator would be stopped and he would be able to catch up to it. There was no rationale behind it. He started running through the stairs, his cell phone in hand.
"Get the elevator stopped," he'd called his cousin on the fourth floor. "Just do it!" What good were cousins if you couldn't tell them to do something irrational and on the spur of the moment like that?
He was definitely glad to have been one of the best runners of his high school. It paid to stay in shape. He was running ragged, his breath in short puffs as he opened the door to the fourth floor. He caught sight of a smiling Sakura with his male cousin who was giving her a file and keeping her in place rather easily.
By the way he was talking to her, it would seem that he had known her job description and had improvised on the spot to stall her. As she caught sight on him, she only groaned inwardly, he could see it as she steeled herself, resigned as he made a straight line to the elevator.
He didn't even acknowledge his cousin before pulling him back, crowding Sakura back into the box and shutting the doors without looking back. He did not care if his cousin's expression could get any more cheery as he saw the whole thing.
Sakura made her way to a corner of the elevator, far away from him in an elusive stance. The box was still cradled over her arms, the object used to keep a physical distance from him. She saw him observing her quietly, his body primed for any reaction. He was poised as if to strike. Exactly in what manner had all this fueled her imagination?
She couldn't help but smile sardonically as the silence reigned in. Her assumptions had been correct. Although maybe he really just couldn't find the words to speak to her at the moment, it would be a first time in their short acquaintance that he would be short of words if for the small blessing of his breathing still hard from his sprint.
"What are you doing here?" it seemed like they were back to that question once he regained it. She couldn't blame him though.
"I told you, I work for your father," her back was straight as a rod, stiffness in all of her locked muscles as she got each word out.
"When did this happen?" there was no concern in his voice, his tone superfluous.
"I started officially a week ago, but I've been under contract for around two weeks," he was absorbing her words. Two weeks before. That was around the time he had met her.
"But, how did you get to know my father?" he prodded, a single path before him. He had a lot of questions and this felt like the safest line to get the answers he wanted.
Sakura's smile couldn't be described as anything but enigmatic. What would she say? If she told him that she had been his father's manicurist for months and he'd taken a like to her and wanted to keep her close to keep him company, she was sure that it would be blown out of proportion. Although, hadn't that already happened?
"Isn't the question you want to ask more along the lines of what I'm actually doing here somehow involved with your father and your work instead of the Amamiya mansion?" she caught his flash of surprise. There was no eagerness to explore that point. "Or where you trying to build yourself up to that question?"
She didn't pull her punches as he wavered before her. She could tell from his body language that he wanted to speak, but exercised control over himself to keep it to himself. Probably keeping that temper of his in check, the one she had heard so much about.
She went on alert when she saw him turn to the panel, pressing a couple of buttons. He placed a code, which didn't exactly make it stop. She had thought he would have stopped the elevator, but had only cancelled the stop to the floor to his office.
"What are you doing?" she had to ask. She was getting a lot of contradictory signals from him and her own body. How could one feel safe and want to apply the laws of fight or flight.
"I'm going to get some answers," it was a cryptic response that told her nothing. They passed the floor, the numbers changing on the screen beside the panel at an alarming speed. They stopped at the top floor, the doors opening to a plush carpet.
It was not an office. It was more like a personal suite.
"This is our personal suite. If we need to stay over, we can just crash in here since it has all the amenities of home," she didn't know why he bothered to explain.
Neither one of them moved from their positions.
"You should at least put the box down or I'm sure the cram settled on your arms is just going to get worse," she wavered as he instructed her. "I'm not going to pounce on you if you put it down."
"Can I get that in writing?" her question threw him off. It was followed by her compliance, her arms thanking her forethought into their pain. "When I say that it looks like you look like a wolf that can pounce at any moment, I don't mean that as a bad remark, just the truth."
"Just who are you Sakura?"
"The truth?" he was impassively nodding, not moving from his own corner of the elevator as it remained stationary. She had to assume that whatever code he had put in the board had left them stationed on the floor until he desired to get them moving again. Or of course until she walked out and made for the stairs.
"I'm just a woman in her twenties with a bachelor's in business that got lucky at getting this job," that of course was the truth. What else would she volunteer?
"That really doesn't tell me anything. Why are you working for my father when you have very close connections to Amamiya Industries from what I could see?" The intruding question didn't bother her in the least.
"I don't think I would work for Amamiya Industries. I'm sure Masaki-san would look over my shoulder on anything and coddle me as much as he could. I know him too well to not understand what would happen if I had ever taken him in his offer?"
"Sakura," his expression was dead serious as he called her attention. Her smile vanished. "What exactly is your relationship to Amamiya? What do you do for him?"
"What do you mean? I keep him company. We've always been very close and with his sons traveling all the time and his less involvement in his company, he's been more demanding of my own time so he doesn't slip into a dementia."
"All you do is 'keep' him company?" his question raised a few questions from her.
"Why are you so interested in my relationship with him? He's a very dear old man."
He looked to her as if she had been the one to go crazy at her choice of words to describe the backbone of Amamiya Enterprises. "You're pretty new to our circles Sakura but you must surely have seen the implications. You came to a party hosted to the high rollers circle of our town at the arm of one of its oldest members. You're a beautiful young woman in the arms of an old man that has a lot of money."
It was a harsh blow. She felt it in her chest rather acutely. She had known that some of the stares as well as the implications of that night would run rampant. The fact that Syaoran's own eyes were narrowed as his words snapped out of his mouth were the last piece that could finally place a lot of things into perspective.
She had to laugh. "I knew when I was asked that some would take a wrong impression into what was actually going on, but why should that worry me?" the question stupefied him. "All of those people can think what they like about me as I don't give a damn."
"Are you sure Sakura?" he could not be as nonchalant when it came to that.
"And what business is it of theirs anyway. If I chose to get involved with an older man, those reasons are my own."
"So?" the single word was left in the open.
"So what?" her head was starting to hurt. She was going to get one of her migraines. It was building behind her right eye. That pressure was just going to build up. "What is it you want to know Syaoran? Do you want to know if I have any designs on your father? Is that it? Will this stop this inquisition and derelictions to my character?"
He sputtered back nonsensical words she strained to hear over her anger. She had the urge to smirk at his loss of words. It had been a straight shot that had landed right where she wanted it. It felt good to be the one in control, even if it was just for a few minutes as he pulled himself together.
"Well, do you?" she didn't know what she had expected truly. Still, this had been one of the possibilities and he had definitely chosen that path. It was the writing on the wall she could see appearing over her head and couldn't help but step right onto it.
She wondered what would happen if she walked right up to him, just two steps would do, and pulled him down. Whether she would kiss him or brain him with whatever she could grab was another matter.
Syaoran could feel his face hardening as quiet reigned between them. They just stared, their unwavering gazes posing their own questions and answers. What more could happen?
In a single motion, she picked up the box set beside her feet and stepped out. She was sure she could find a way out of this place. She had not forgotten the fact that she was currently in the Li building and her boss actually expected her back from her errand.
"Where are you going?" it wasn't an order precisely, but she could definitely hear the underlying steel in his tone. She really could care less.
"I'm going to your office since your father has been expecting me for some time. I really do have a job to get back to you see," her parting words were muffled as she opened the door to the stairs and let it go with a satisfying smack. She rolled her eyes as the inertia of the door mechanism stopped it from actually hitting back with force. It would have been incredibly childish but satisfying.
She had barely gone a couple of stairs when she felt him draw her back. She was able to hold onto the box, since she wasn't going to drop the contents like a novice a second time in his presence. His arm was strong, giving her a jerk back that disoriented her entire body. The box wound up hitting his chest, which had her grinning.
She would take anything she could get. She saw a flickering emotion in his eyes as one of his hands wound around the impending object and wrestled it from her. If anything happened to its contents, it wouldn't be on her head. He had expected her to keep firm of it, which is why he jerked back stumbling slightly as she let him have it without a fight.
She could feel his temper rising as she kept in close contact with him. She waited to see what he was going to do. He had gone all out of his way to follow her into the stairs so she might as well see what he had in mind.
There was a storm brewing inside his eyes. His amber eyes were swirling as his mouth opened in sharp gasps as he regained his breath. He had acted on impulse in following her into the stairs. He hadn't thought it through on what he would actually do when he caught up to her.
There was defiance in her stance. Her mouth opened, ready to deliver a scathing comment only to find her body hurled into his arms. She then found herself being thoroughly kissed by the man that had insulted her with both words and silence in the last few minutes.
Somehow though, she didn't let it matter as she found herself enveloped in his kiss. He was hard and demanding, not letting her catch her breath or a simmer of control before maneuvering her against the railing rather strongly.
Sakura was overwhelmed. Her hands were grasping parts of his clothing to keep anchored as her legs lost most of the power to keep her upright. She had to give him a standing ovation for it. The man could sure kiss like the best of them.
She pulled back for a second before diving back. If he was going to kiss her, then she was going to enjoy it before they both returned to their senses. The swirling energy around them, enveloping them as her body's aroused state had her senses riveting with each brush.
It was there, they pulled back simultaneously. She chose to not wait for the recriminations that would soon start, turning in her heels and moving down. She was revved. If nothing else, she couldn't say that she hadn't enjoyed the kiss. Whether she lied to someone or him for that matter didn't matter since she had finally gotten it out of her system, but she wouldn't do it to herself.
She finally understood what was happening to her each time she came close to the guy. What a time for her to discover her own sex drive and desire. Well, at least she had picked a great specimen.
"You can't just leave!" the exclamation came directly from behind her. She had been wrapped in her inner monologue to hear his approaching steps. Somehow the fact that she was the one being chased wasn't lost to her. She was able to call on enough maturity to not point it out to him.
She really wasn't holding the cards though. Her own pyramid of strength could burst with just a snap of his wrist. Her senses were inundated after just that one taste. She needed to get herself under control if she didn't want to appear like a loose cannon that had no control.
Had he thrown her against the wall, caging her in, she could have understood her loss of strength. But he hadn't. Just having him in close proximity had her body reacting like a match to fire. She was out of her depth and there was nothing else to do but retreat to safety.
"Syaoran," his name coming from her had a strange sensation crop up inside his body. He had the urge to hear it again, but refrained from saying so. "What do you want from me?"
They were stopped; she was one step beneath him, staring up at him. There was a glassy power in her stare that disarmed him. He was stopped dead, unable to move as her pleading expression dug deep into his eyes. He suddenly felt naked. She was stripping him apart with just one look and he didn't know how to stop her. He didn't think he could stop her. His hand dropped away, swinging to his side while he tried to interpret her current state.
She walked past him, gripping the box he had dropped to the floor and slipping past him again to walk the stairs. Neither of them could explain what had just occurred. Sakura didn't know if she would be able to act like nothing had happened in the office if he showed up like his father had planned.
Syaoran didn't know it, but he was about to oblige her silent wish. He remained in place, staring into the wall as the past few minutes replayed themselves in his mind. His thoughts were chaotic, the whole thing going from start to finish. What the heck had come over him?
"I don't know what I want from you Sakura," his voice sounded sore to his own ears. He had the urge to get himself a strong drink. The woman he'd been thinking about had just walked into his life as his father's mysterious assistant. He then recalled that this was the sultry voice over the phone that connected him to his father for the past week and could do nothing but growl as he gave into his impulse of punching the wall. His hand did not thank him for it afterwards, but it was enough to distract him.
He growled the word. He needed to get some answers. The only way to get them was going to be the source. Contrary to what Sakura thought, she wasn't it. Syaoran was about to have a talk with his father he'd been putting off for the sake of civility.