Wind of Destiny: Converging
Red Thread – Chapter Three
***WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS HEAVY SEXUAL CONTENT. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED***
Dinner had been... Uncomfortable, to say the least. She'd felt like everything down to her cells was being scrutinized as they'd walked into the dining hall. She had made quite a spectacle of herself so their curiosity was understandable, but they could have at least tried to be subtle about it. Now she knew how microbes must have felt being stared at under a microscope. If Hawks had been bothered at all by the probing stares, he hadn't shown it. He'd been his usual, laidback self as they'd walked in and were seated at their own private table. He'd ordered for both of them and while they'd been waiting for the first course to arrive, she'd felt his hand start drifting up her bare thigh.
It had started at her knee. He'd held her gaze with his as his hand slowly drifted upward to slip beneath the black velvet fabric of her dress. She'd fought to keep her composure as his fingers teased the edge of her panties at the juncture of her inner thigh. The sound of her heartbeat pounded in her ears, drowning out whatever he'd been talking to her about the entire time he'd been trailing his hand up her leg. Thankfully, the waiter had brought out their first course before he'd been able to go any further. However, his salacious attentions had successfully distracted her from the unwanted scrutiny she'd been under since they'd walked in. By the time dinner had been served, everyone had become more occupied with their meals than with staring at her, and they'd managed to make it through the rest of dinner without further incident.
After the plates for the final course had been cleared, everyone had moved back into the main hall to mingle. As soon as they'd passed through the doors, she'd practically been assaulted by people inquiring about who she was and what had prompted her to make such a substantial bid. Hawks had handled most of the conversation, which was a blessing to Misaki. Whenever anyone tried to ask her any personal questions, he'd somehow managed to steer them off onto another topic without them even noticing that she hadn't answered them.
As they slowly made their way through the throng of people, they came upon the familiar, towering figure of Best Jeanist standing next to a rather young-looking woman. Her teal and purple ombre hair was collected into a large, intricate looking bun at the back of her head. Several iridescent scales covered the exposed skin of her neck and arms and seemed to shimmer in the light whenever she moved. She was dressed in a sleeveless, pale blue chiffon gown which complimented the faintly blue tint of her otherwise pale complexion. Her large, slit pupil blue eyes widened as she noticed the two of them approach, and she lifted a webbed hand to her mouth and gasped.
"Oh my god, Hawks!" She called out excitedly, her wide grin showing off a double row of razor-sharp teeth, tinging her excitement with a hint of menace. "I'm, like, your biggest fan! I will literally die if I don't get a picture. Can I?"
Hawks smiled back at the jubilant teenager and shrugged.
"Sure!" Turning his head to look over at Misaki, he followed with, "As long as it's okay with my date."
Misaki blinked, slightly taken aback by him asking her for permission to take a picture with a fan.
"Yeah, of course! Go ahead," she almost stuttered in reply. As he walked over to stand next to the girl so she could take a selfie with him, she muttered under her breath to herself, "I'd hate for her to literally die."
Teenagers and their overdramatic misuse of vocabulary made her a little cynical sometimes.
"Your winning bidder, I take it?" Misaki asked, glancing over at the tall hero standing next to her from the corner of her eye.
"Yes," he admitted somewhat reluctantly as he blew out a sigh.
She smiled up at him and introduced herself, "I'm Torimodo Misaki, by the way."
He nodded his head to her and returned the greeting, "Best Jeanist. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Misaki shifted on her feet a bit uncomfortably, grimacing slightly as she admitted, "We've actually spoken on the phone a few times. But it's nice to finally meet you in person."
Recognition flashed across the only visible portion of Best Jeanist's face as he looked down at her and said, "The President's secretary. It is indeed nice to finally put a face to the voice. Are you attending the event tonight on behalf of the Hero Public Safety Commission?"
"That was initially the plan, yes. I guess you could say I sort of improvised a bit there at the last second…" She trailed off with a grimace.
"You did make quite an entrance," he commented, glancing down at her briefly from the corner of his visible eye.
Misaki ducked her head and covered her eyes with her hand as she groaned, "I'd really rather just forget that any of that ever happened. So embarrassing…!"
"I don't think you're gonna be livin' that one down for a while, Cinderella!" The jovial voice of Hawks addressed her suddenly as they were rejoined by their respective dates for the evening.
"Shut up," she grumbled annoyedly as she reached out to playfully push against his shoulder.
The expressive face of Best Jeanist's date popped into her field of vision a moment before the girl's animated voice suddenly addressed her. "Hi there! I'm Fukahire Aoi. You're the chick who made that ten million yen bid, right? That was so epic! You should have seen the look on old lady Arakawa's face!" The girl suddenly switched her attention over to Hawks as she said, "I totes would have bid on you, but my dad would literally kill me if I went up against her. Her husband's, like, his boss 'n stuff, ya know?" Her head whipped back around to Misaki as she continued to ramble, "But congrats, for real! I'm sooo jealous! Like, you have no idea!"
"Um—" Misaki stuttered in an attempt to respond to the wound-up chatter box.
The girl didn't even miss a step, clasping her hands in front of her as she stared at her with sparkling eyes and continued, "You're so pretty! And I'm obsessed with this dress! Who's your designer?"
"Madame LeBlanc?" Misaki actually managed to reply, phasing the name like a question as she wasn't sure the girl would know who the tiny woman was.
The girl held up a webbed finger and said, "Wait, hold up. The Madame LeBlanc? The Madame LeBlanc who only does custom gowns for, like, celebs and stuff? You're seriously telling me right now that this is an MLB orig?" The girl stared at her in shocked awe and asked, "Where did you even come from? Like, really! Who are you?"
Misaki smiled demurely and replied, "Just the lucky benefactor of someone else's generosity."
The girl quickly blinked a few times and shook her head before saying, "I don't really know what that means, but I totally get the lucky part."
"Fukahire-san," Best Jeanist suddenly interjected, coming up to stand behind the teenager. "Perhaps we should be on our way."
"Oh! Yeah, sure! No probs!" She animatedly replied as she hooked her arm in his. "Well, it was nice meeting you, whoever you are! Bye Hawks!"
Best Jeanist nodded to Misaki and Hawks before gracefully guiding his exuberant date away, who waved at them frantically over her shoulder before disappearing into the crowd.
Misaki lowered her hand, which she'd lifted to wave back at the girl, and blew out a heavy sigh. "Wow… I used to think you talked fast."
"Guess you don't talk to many teenage girls, huh?" Hawks commented, glancing over at her from the corner of his eye.
She cocked her head to the side and shot him an inquisitive look. "No, but it sounds like you do."
He reached up to rub the back of his neck, replying in a slightly exasperated tone, "Yeah, sometimes. They'll go on like that forever if you let 'em."
"Poor Jeanist," she commented, staring off in the direction the two of them had left in with a sympathetic look on her face.
"Fukahire Aoi's grandfather owns one of the biggest maritime shipping companies in Kyushu. She lost her mother three years ago when a group of pirates hijacked their yacht in international waters," Hawks explained, his voice taking on a somber tone.
Misaki's eyes widened and she lifted a hand to her mouth as she whispered, "That's horrible."
He slipped his hands into his pockets, gazing off in the direction they'd walked off in with a sullen expression etched across his face. "That's not even the bad part. The two Navy's couldn't agree on who had jurisdiction to handle the rescue effort, since her dad is the primary aide to the Speaker of the House of Councilors. They ended up having to swim almost fifty kilometers back into Japanese waters after her mother was killed creating an opportunity for them to escape."
"That poor girl…" She trailed off dolefully, suddenly feeling awful for silently ridiculing the girl's use of vocabulary earlier. Misaki knew from personal experience how heartbreaking it was to lose a parent. The fact that she was able to be so cheerful and upbeat after what she'd been through was unbelievably incredible.
"Yeah. Every year her grandfather sponsors her bid in the auction to make a donation to the Survivor's Fund in her mother's name." He tilted his head toward her and caught her eye, a small, knowing smirk spreading across his face as he said, "She always bids on Best Jeanist."
"How do you know all of that?" She asked, a bit suspiciously.
Hawks shrugged and widened his smirk into a full-blown grin as he jovially replied, "I make an effort to keep myself well informed!"
Misaki huffed out a laugh and shook her head in lighthearted exasperation.
"So, now what?" She asked as she stared around the room at all the groups of people just milling around with drinks in their hands and talking.
"Well, it's your ten-million-yen date. We can do whatever you want," Hawks told her, catching her eye before asking, "What do you wanna do?"
"What I want?" She reiterated, raising an allusive eyebrow at him.
"Mhm," he hummed, staring back at her from behind somewhat hooded lids.
She turned to him, stepping into his personal space, and running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders to wrap loosely around his neck. "Right now, more than anything else, what I want is…" She trailed off, leaning in until her lips were only a few centimeters away from his own before saying, "To get out of these shoes."
A wide grin cracked his expression and he let out a genuine laugh before telling her, "I think I can make that happen."
"Thank you," she almost whined in appreciation.
They walked arm in arm out of one of the side doors and into the hallway outside the ballroom. As he began to lead them away from the front door, Misaki tugged on his arm to stop him and said, "Wait, I need to get my coat."
"No need," he nonchalantly replied. "I had it delivered to our room."
She blinked a couple of times and turned to ask in confusion, "What room?"
He pulled a key card out of his right pocket and held it up for her to see, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as he explained with a shrug, "I figure, we're already here. Might as well take advantage of it, right?"
"When did you have time to get us a room?" she asked, shock clearly evident in her tone.
"All of the heroes who participated in the auction were comped rooms for the night as a kind of participation incentive," he told her as he slid the key card back into his pocket.
"Isn't this a little risky? There are so many people here," she hesitantly asked, glancing over her shoulder at the doors of the ballroom they'd just walked out of, half expecting a bunch of people to be standing there watching them and whispering behind their hands about where they might be going or what they might be doing together.
"You nervous?" Hawks suddenly asked, his playful tone assuaging some of her nervousness.
"Maybe… A little," she tentatively replied, glancing up coyly into his shrewd gaze.
The side of his mouth turned up in a smirk and he tilted his head as he told her, "Don't worry. I know a shortcut."
He made a sudden, sharp left, dragging her off down another, narrow hallway just before the main elevator lobby. He shifted his arm out of hers and reached out to take her hand instead, making sure not to walk fast enough that she wouldn't be able to keep up.
They came to a halt in front of a set of wide elevator doors. Misaki immediately recognized what they were and asked, "Isn't this a service elevator?"
"Yep. The service elevators in this hotel are programmed to run without interruption once a floor is selected," Hawks said as he pushed the button to call the elevator car.
Misaki bit the edge of her lip and turned her head to glance apprehensively down each side of the empty hallway. "Are you sure it's okay for us to use this?"
He shrugged and shrewdly replied, "I won't tell if you don't." Holding his arm across the door once it slid open, he gestured for her to enter ahead of him with a tilt of his head and said, "After you."
She slowly shook her head, casting him a sly, sidelong glance as she stepped past him into the elevator car and told him in a playfully reproving tone, "You are a very bad influence, Maverick."
The sides of his mouth turned up in a grin as he entered the car after her before reaching out to press the button for the forty-seventh floor. Just as the elevator doors finished sliding closed, he turned, pinning her against the back wall and kissing her deeply. She lifted her arms to wrap around his neck as his hands slid down to grip her hips and he stepped forward, pressing himself flush against her. She tilted her head to the side as he delved his tongue into her mouth, rolling her own tongue over his and pressing herself so tightly against him that there was no room left for even air to pass through.
"I've been waiting all night to do that," he groaned as he pulled back to take a breath, ducking his head to lean his forehead against hers.
She smirked and bit the corner of her lower lip before saying, "I thought I was going to have a problem with your wandering hand during dinner but you somehow managed to control yourself. I'm kinda proud of you."
He lifted his eyes to stare into hers, his hand slowly sliding up her exposed thigh as he asked, "Do I get a reward for my efforts?"
"Keigo—!" Her eyes widened and she gasped as two of his fingers suddenly slipped around the edge of her panties and delved deep into her core.
He captured her lips again, drinking in her panting moans as he stoked her pleasure with practiced ease. His thumb pressed against her clit over her panties and began circling the tiny bundle of nerves in time with the movements of his fingers thrusting inside her. Misaki shuddered, letting out a whining moan against his lips at the rush of pleasure that spread through her lower abdomen from his touch. He knew just how to caress her to draw out her pleasure, molding and shaping her as if she was putty in his hands. Her knee lifted and she braced her heel against the back of the elevator car, leveraging herself to rock her hips against his hand as a familiar heat began to pool in her loins.
The elevator suddenly dinged their arrival on the forty-seventh floor.
The doors slowly slid open to reveal a flushed and slightly disheveled Misaki standing next to a much more composed looking Hawks. He pulled her out of the elevator by the hand, leading her down the hall to their room. Removing the key card from his coat pocket, he swiftly unlocked the door and pushed it open to let them both inside. She was pressed up against the back of the door the moment it closed, feeling his hand slip through the slit in her dress to cup her behind as he leaned in to attack the sensitive patch of skin just underneath her ear with his mouth before slowly trailing a blazing path down the side of her neck.
"Wait, wait, stop!" She called out frantically, pushing against his chest.
He almost whined, dropping his head like a lead weight onto her shoulder as he groaned out, "You're killin' me, Misa-chan."
He let her push him back a step and she moved around him, explaining, "At least let me take off the jewelry first."
Misaki sat down on top of the bench in the entryway and carefully removed her shoes while Hawks made his way over to the bathroom. She sighed in relief once her feet were free of the strappy black heels and she sat there for a moment to let them rest before standing and walking into the living area. She took a moment to glance around the Japanese styled suite as she reached up to remove her earrings. She very carefully placed both them and the necklace in her clutch before snapping it closed with an audible sigh of relief. While she was at it, she pulled out her phone and sent a message to her driver to let him know that she wouldn't be needing a ride home for the night.
She set her phone and her bag down on the table behind the couch as she walked across the sitting area into the small dinning nook and stared out the window, marveling at the stunning view of the city skyline below. The Tokyo Ritz Carlton Hotel was one of the tallest buildings in downtown Tokyo, and the room they were staying in for the night was on one of the uppermost floors. She could see the tops of every building in her line of sight, along with the brightly lit Tokyo Tower standing like a pillar of light in the darkness several kilometers away. Suddenly sensing that she was being watched, Misaki turned her head to see Hawks leaning against the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets, just staring at her.
"What?" She asked, looking down and away timidly.
"Just thinkin' I'm the luckiest guy in the world," he replied in a sincere tone of voice.
She almost laughed, remembering back to her conversation with her driver on the ride over.
She turned and walked over to him, draping her arms around his neck as she sarcastically asked, "Why? Because I saved you from having to spend the night with some stuck-up, rich, socialite who just wanted you as arm candy for the evening to brag to her stuck-up, rich, socialite friends?"
Sliding his hands around her back to rest over the top of her behind, he tilted his head as a thoughtful look crossed his face "Well, when you put it that way..." He glanced back down into her eyes. "No. Because for some reason beyond my comprehension, the most amazing woman I've ever met chose me to fall in love with over anyone else in the world."
Misaki looked down, unwrapping her arms from around his neck and resting her hands on his chest. "I could say the same thing. The only difference is there are a lot more people out there who are already in love with you than there are people in the world who even know I exist."
"I seriously doubt that after tonight," he replied matter-of-factly.
She couldn't help the little rueful laugh that left her, and she pulled away from him, walking into the bedroom and flopping down onto the foot of the large futon dominating the space. It was just as wide, if not more so, than the bed in her apartment, sitting atop a flat, low frame. There was a nightstand on either side of the bed and a small alcove with a long bench sitting under another large window overlooking the city.
She glanced down at herself and shook her head, grumbling, "So much fuss over a silly dress..."
Her eyes shot up to his as he followed her into the room and stopped to stand in front of the foot of the bed where she was sitting. She lifted her bare foot and began to lightly trace her toes up the front of his leg. "Speaking of, didn't you mention something earlier about wanting to strip me out of it? You waiting for some kinda invitation or something?"
He reached down to cup her heel when her toes began to tease the edge of his semi-hardened manhood over his pants and said, "Now that I've got you all to myself, I think I'd rather take my time undressing you."
Thank you for reading :)
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