Unexpected love

Included on Johnny's Monday Night Route had been breakfast in bed the following morning. However, following through on that objective was difficult Tuesday morning as Ten woke long before his lover and breakfast was already cooked, placed strategically on the plate, and waiting for Johnny a good quarter hour before the businessman woke up.

Imagine, if you would, waking up to the delicious smell of food (thanks to Irene and the person she sent shopping for food) and to the rather delightful feeling of being kissed awake. Add to that pleasure the fact that Ten's lips were South of Johnny's mouth, and it's certain that Johnny could not have woken to a brighter day.

Breakfast was cold by the time Johnny crawled out of bed, but the ruffled Ten that followed him into the shower didn't mind at all that his effort was wasted. It had been appreciated in its own way.

^*^*^*^*^

"Is this all we're doing today?" Ten asked a short while before noon. The exact time wasn't known, as they were still in the tub, otherwise known as the small-pool-sized Jacuzzi, and there was no clock in the room with them.

"You're complaining?" Johnny asked teasingly, not opening his eyes. He was laying back against the side of the bath, legs spread and bent upwards to accommodate Ten, who was happily snuggled against Johnny's chest, between the older man's legs, one hand absent-mindedly running lines up and down Johnny's outer right thigh.

Ten gave a tug on the hair on Johnny's leg in retribution for being teased. Johnny grunted and grabbed the errant hand, pulling it up to his mouth to be kissed before he crossed his arm and Ten's across Ten's chest. They didn't speak again for a few minutes and the only sound in the bathroom was their breathing. "The water's getting cold again," Ten commented, dipping a hand in the water and splashing Johnny's arm to demonstrate his point.

"So it is," Johnny agreed. He shifted a little, raising his left foot out of the water and reaching his toes towards the faucet in preparation of adding more hot water to the tub.

"I'm already pruny," Ten whined softly.

Johnny dropped his foot back in the water. "You're ready to get out?" he asked. Ten nodded. Johnny sighed. "Fine, but you have to get out first."

"Since I'm on top, that'd probably be easiest," Ten returned playfully, already levering himself into a standing position.

Johnny grinned, reached up, and patted Ten's backside. "I just wanted to enjoy the view." His tone was husky, and his hand remained on Ten's skin, tenderly caressing the other man's upper legs and buttocks. His other hand came up to join the first, and the rest of his body followed, moving into a kneeling position.

"Johnny" Ten started hoarsely, only to break off when the older man licked the water from the back of his thigh. He tried again. "Johnny, we already did it in the shower. Twice. We're supposed to be getting clean and-" he was cut off again, this time by the presence of a cheek against his... lower back.

"Just to be punny, because I can: I'd love to get dirty with you again," Johnny replied, wrapping his arms around Ten's hips and gently rubbing the side of his face against Ten's lower back.
It was long past noon when they finally made their way, sated and hungry, out of the bathroom in search of clothes and food.

^*^*^*^*^

"That has to be the silliest question I've ever heard."

"Just answer it," Johnny ordered. Across the table, elbows resting on the wood and chin resting on his meshed fingers, Ten smiled back.

"You answer it first," the younger man requested. Johnny shook his head, adamant that Ten reply first. Ten smiled and batted his eyelashes. "Please, Johnny? You've been listening to my life story for the past few hours, and I still know almost nothing about you." He pouted, tilting his head and doing his best to look dejected.

It had been too wonderful a day for any true, sad emotions. The time was nearing six in the evening, and dinner was cooking in the oven. They had spent the day making love and conversation, from the bedroom, to the bathroom, the kitchen to the living room. For an apartment that had never seen Johnny in action before, it had just managed to catch up in a single day.

With a small smile, Johnny conceded. "Short version then. My father was a assistant professor who impregnated the daughter of a wealthy family, they married and she was disowned. I was born, my parents died in a car accident, and I was sent to live with my aunt, who still lived with her parents, my maternal grandparents. I have several degrees, all pertaining to business or accounting, and I've lived in this apartment for four years. The end."

Ten blinked for a moment, taking in that brief spurt of information before deciding that Johnny wasn't getting out of it that easily. "No first girlfriend? Or boyfriend? High school, best friend, frat parties, most embarrassing moment? The dumbest thing you've ever done? I want -details-, Johnny."

There were many things that fell under that category, and perhaps at the top would have been not telling Ten the whole story from the beginning. Johnny was an intelligent man; he knew that his assistant had good reason to suggest he tell Ten the goings-on of his business, especially since 'business' included taking over Ten's father Corp. and throwing Ten's family into the figurative street.

However, Johnny was also a man in the paradise of his first real relationship, happily ensconced in a love-filled world where the only thing that mattered was that his lover was happy, and in Johnny's mind, the less Ten knew, the happier he would be.

A lot of things can be forgiven a man in love, even stupidity.

^*^*^*^*^

Johnny didn't want to go back to work on Wednesday. After regaling Ten with stories of his prestigious upbringing the evening before, they had ordered dinner in and spent a (mostly) quiet night in, enjoying the food, the quiet, and, more-often-than-not, each other.

He woke up to his internal alarm and rolled out of bed, carefully to lay Ten's head, which had been resting on Johnny's chest, on his pillow instead. He considered waking him up, since he had time, but decided that his love-bunny deserved the rest. Johnny was rather certain he'd worn the poor man out the previous day and night.

He dressed casual for work. Most of his duties that day consisted of paperwork, last minute phone calls, and trying to boss Irene around. He called for the car to be brought around, had a nutritious breakfast of coffee and left-over fried rice, and then made his way down to the lobby where the car was waiting. Halfway down the stairs, he decided to leave a note for Ten, and he made his way back up to his apartment.

He let himself in with his key and then stopped in the kitchen to find the memo pad that was supposed to be stuck to the fridge, but which he found sticking out from under the microwave. He jotted a few quick lines and left again, knowing that if he gave in to temptation and went to see Ten, he'd probably never get out of the apartment on time.

^*^*^*^*^

Ten woke slowly to an empty bed. His arms were wrapped around a soft, Johnny-scented pillow, and his legs were tangled in the sheets. He sighed and glanced at the clock on the bedside table.

With a groan, he flopped onto his back. It was only eight o'clock. Johnny would be at work by then, and Ten still had an hour and a half before he had to be at his first class of the day, leaving him with entirely too much time to miss his new lover and to dwell on things best left trampled in the dirt.

The silence of the apartment was broken by the soft shutting of the entrance door. Ten sat up, eyes going bright at the thought that Johnny had skipped work to come back and spend the day with him again.

He was out of bed in an instant, a sheet wrapped around his hips to cover his lack of clothing.

He tiptoed out of the bedroom and towards the living room, where he could hear someone shuffling around. It took him too long to notice that the noise was too loud for Johnny, and definitely too loud for only one person. By the time that thought occurred to him, he was tied and gagged in the back of a van, headed away from Johnny's building, his hulking captors sitting quietly in the front.

^*^*^*^*^

"Good morning, Irene!" Johnny called cheerfully as he walked into the office. Business stopped for a moment, everyone glancing up in surprise. Their boss was a good man and generally well-liked, but he remained a general figure of mystery. Announcing his presence in such a loud, extroverted way was out of character with the way he normally entered unobtrusively, oft-times sneaking by without anyone realizing he'd arrived.

Irene froze in mid-stride, eyes glancing up from her folders with a wary look in them. Johnny grinned.

"How is my wonderful assistant today?" he asked, still walking towards his office, not breaking stride, even though he was breaking up everyone else's normal routine. There was a titter from the far side of the office, but it was either ignored or not heard.

After a moment, Irene shook her head and held up the files. "You need to go over this by nine.

The east office called this morning, and they're missing a shipment, while the Busan warehouse called to tell me that they were over-full. The man in charge of both errors is on the phone, blaming an assistant, and his wife, who is in charge of the east office, called to order us to fire the head of the Busan division, because her husband is having an affair with the CEO in charge of something."

Johnny accepted the files she handed to him, giving them a quick once-over as she continued listing the problems that had arisen while he was gone. Many had been handled or postponed, and he commended her on her 'ability to cope' without him.

"Stuff it, Seo. I hope you ate breakfast, because your lunch meeting has been rescheduled for next week and replaced with a meeting with the guy working on the Leechaiyapornkul personnel lists. I can get you coffee, but you're not dropping crumbs on all of the reports."

"The clean-freak? I thought we hired another guy?" Johnny asked.

Irene sighed. "We did, but the first guy wouldn't give any of the information he'd gathered back, and I couldn't get it out of him any other way."

"Irene, I'm disappointed in you, letting someone like that get the better of you." Johnny clucked his tongue for emphasis, laughing out loud when she stalked past him and elbowed him in the side. "I can see that I'm not the only one in a playful mood today."

She ignored him as they reached his office. She paused and waited for him to enter in front of her, and then she followed and shut the door. "The banker is on line three, but he can wait another five minutes. Your aunt is on line two, but she's in a bad mood and she wants you to come by and clip her toenails. Her companion, the one you hired a week ago, walked off and left her alone, which is why the fire department is on line six, wanting to talk to you about the explosion in the kitchen."

"Great," he sighed and pinched the side of his nose. "Anything else I should know about?"

She shook her head and was about to give him a verbal negative response, when his intercom rang through. "Mr. Seo, there's a man on line one. He says he's your house guest."

"Thank you, Joy" Johnny said, grinning. He winked at Irene, who raised an eyebrow and turned her back as he picked up the phone. He pushed the button for line one. "This is a pleasant surprise."

"Somehow, I think it's more surprising than 'pleasant'," a nasally voice responded. Johnny's face went hard and he tapped the desk to get Irene's attention as the speaker continued. "You really shouldn't have messed with my little cousin, Johnny."

"Leechaiyapornkul" Johnny said coldly. He held up two fingers, indicating that it was the second oldest. Irene nodded; her face was as impassive as Johnny's. "What do you want?"

"I just want to ensure that this deal goes down without a hitch. I figured, knowing you, you'd walk in tomorrow with Ten on your arm, and the whole thing would be ruined," Jay answered.

There was something sinister in his tone, and the hair on the back of Johnny's neck rose. "You won't find my cousin when you get home, Johnny. I've taken the liberty of inviting him someplace where you can't get to him."

Johnny's face fell, and he looked at Irene with a lost look and mouthed the words, "He has Ten." She was out of the room a moment later, and Johnny turned back to the person at the other end of the line. "What do I have to do?"

"Nothing more than what you were already going to do. Tomorrow, you're announcing your hold on my uncle's company and whatever else it is you were going to do. All I want is for my share and your word that you're not going to mess it up."

"Why kidnap your cousin?" he asked coldly, functioning on auto-pilot.

"Because you, my friend, are a bastard," Jay informed him with as much ice in his voice as Johnny had used. He ruined that effect by softening his tone. "He's my baby cousin, Johnny, and while I may be a grade-A ass to him myself, I'm not about to let you do to him what you do to your women. He doesn't deserve that."

Something clicked in the back of Johnny's mind and he sat down in his desk chair as Irene walked back in notepad and pen in hand. She wrote a short message saying she'd called a 'police contact', but Johnny shook his head and waved her aside. "You think Ten deserves to be abducted from my apartment?"

"I think he deserves more than to be another notch on your belt. You can have my uncle's company, Johnny, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let another asshole take his place in ruining my cousin's life."

Johnny paused and then looked up at Irene with a slight smile. "Understood. I'll see you tomorrow." He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of him in a gesture of contemplation, fingertips pressed together.
"I called our contact at the police department and he said-"

"It's okay, Irene" Johnny cut her off softly, brown eyes staring intently at his fingers. "He's doing it for his cousin. He just doesn't want me to hurt him."

"And kidnapping, and probably breaking and entering, is the preventive measure for that?" she asked sharply.

He smiled at her tone. "If his cousin cares enough about him to save him from me, then Ten is safe."

"You're insane," she informed him flatly. "You haven't told him, have you? And now you're hoping that if he's no where near his father's house tomorrow, there's no reason he should ever have to know."

His smile dimmed. "Your point, Irene?" His tone was all-business, forbidding.

"None, sir," she responded. "I've phone calls to make."

Notes