Her Book Of Pleasure. Marie Donovan

Japanese name is Michiko.” He wanted to ask Rey point-blank for Michiko’s full name, but he’d promised not to cheat. He hated cheaters.

      “Michiko?” Rey asked him, a big grin on her face.

      “Your maid of honor with the exotic green eyes?”

      “Ah.” Marco nodded. “Her Japanese friend is named…”

      “Michiko.” Rey elbowed her new husband. “Yes. Michiko left.”

      “Left?” Rick’s euphoric mood plummeted. “Is she staying here at the hotel?”

      Rey raised an eyebrow. “She didn’t tell you?”

      “No.”

      The DJ needed to talk to Rey, so Rick pulled Marco aside. “Michiko and I made a bet that I wouldn’t be able to find her after tonight.” It’d be a piece of cake to find her with the clues she’d given him. Then he’d wine and dine her, do things in the right order. He had a pretty good idea what made her tick in bed, but what they had done together was much more than a wedding quickie.

      “You? The man who tracked down one of the FBI’s most wanted using nothing but his laptop?”

      “That guy shouldn’t have been peddling my client’s new weapons’ technology overseas.” Rick grinned. “And Michiko doesn’t know me that well. Yet.”

      “Yet. Happy hunting, amigo, but be careful. The Spanish verbs for ‘hunting’ and ‘marrying’ sound identical.” Marco gave a big laugh and pointed to his tux. “Case in point.”

      Rey finished her business with the DJ and twirled her new husband onto the dance floor.

      Rick watched them spin away, suddenly discontent to stand on the sidelines and observe other people’s happiness. Well, no more watching and waiting. He’d waited thirty-two years to meet Michiko and he wasn’t going to wait any longer. If he couldn’t find a green-eyed Japanese girl at a university in Chicago, he’d better find a new line of work.

      4

      DRIVING THROUGH the heavy traffic around Midway Airport, Rick couldn’t remember the last time he’d shaken off his jet lag so quickly. His evening with Michiko had energized him enough so he’d checked out of the Palmer House early in the morning and dropped his things off at his sister’s Lake Shore Drive condo. Fortunately, Cara had also left her SUV for him to use while she spent the summer in Europe.

      Although he had plenty to keep him busy over the summer, he really wanted to see Michiko again. The rest of his night had been one long erotic dream, her long black hair pooling on his belly as she lowered her lush mouth to his cock.

      He’d woken up sweaty and shaken at that point. To hell with the dream, he wanted the real thing. He had two or three possible hits from his online search, but it was Sunday and the universities were closed. He’d find her soon, he had a hunch. But in the meantime, he’d enjoy his trip to Chicago, starting with an extra-large coffee and fresh-baked kolackies, jelly-filled pastries he’d picked up at the European bakery around the corner, even remembering to get a half-dozen prune-filled for his grandmother.

      Rick’s grandmother Lida Sokol had lived for the past fifty years in the middle-class neighborhood of West Lawn on the South Side of Chicago. She had moved there as a young bride in the post-World War II boom and had never wanted to live anywhere else.

      Narrow bungalows stretched for miles, fronted by lawns so neatly trimmed they looked like Astro Turf. One guy, spick-and-span in black socks and white sneakers, was using his Shop-Vac to vacuum any maple seeds that dared fall on his grass.

      Rick smiled as he remembered tossing papery brown pods in the air, watching them spin like propellers before they speared into the grass. That was before his dad moved them to California, so he must have only been four or five, his little sister three. Old enough to overhear the fighting but too young to understand it.

      Now that he was an adult, he didn’t see the fun in maple seeds, only the work needed to clean the gutters before they sprouted into a miniature forest.

      When had his enjoyment of innocent pleasures disappeared? In fact, his encounter with the mysterious Michiko was the only pleasure he’d found in a long time, and that was far from innocent.

      He pulled to a stop in front of his grandmother’s bungalow and frowned. The grass was long and frayed around the edges. The lawn service his secretary had hired must have gotten sloppy without anyone on-site riding herd on them. He set the alarm on the SUV and walked to the rusty chain-link gate. Another thing he’d need to have taken care of. His loafers scuffed over the uneven path leading to the tan brick house.

      Time to start the renovations and hope the major changes wouldn’t upset Grandma. Rick unlocked the worn wooden front door and eased it open, a blast of musty hot air rushing past him. He stepped inside and let the aluminum screen door slam shut.