Wet: Undercurrent by Zenobia Renquist Read Free Book Online

will, then we’ll stop. I can always finish it off tomorrow morning, bright and early. And once the barriers are broken, you don’t have to chance staying here. You can come back to Voda.”
    “Voda?”
    “It’s another spa hotel. You would have free rein of the place since no one would know you’re there. You can feel up all the women you want.”
    He chuckled. “You refer to yesterday before I brought you to the pool room. I was merely stretching my legs. You cannot blame a starving man for indulging when a buffet is set out before him.”
    “Well, there you go. All you can eat is waiting for you at Voda.”
    “And what about you?”
    “Me? Well, I work at Voda, so it’s not like you wouldn’t see me.”
    “You work at Voda? Then why are you here?”
    Crap. Okay, that was stupid. She couldn’t exactly tell him the truth, but she didn’t want to lie, either. “No one vacations where they work. Besides, I wanted to check out the competition.” That wasn’t a complete lie. She was there on vacation, sort of. And she was there to check out the competition, though her checking was for work, not out of idle curiosity.
    Her boss had given her seven days to assess Onsen to find out how they maintained their usual income during this time of financial belt-tightening while Voda had to fight to break even every month. It took her three days of studying the inner workings of Onsen to see there were no differences. The staff, the service, the food -- nothing about Onsen was better than what Voda offered.
    The resorts even shared the same generic naming sense. Onsen was the Japanese word for hot springs. Voda was the Russian word for water. Lulu had joked with her boss about adding in the K -- changing it from voda to vodka -- to gain more customers, but they’d both agreed they would probably get people expecting a drinking vacation instead of a spa visit.
    On day four, Lulu had stopped working so she could enjoy the vacation part of the trip. No more scrutinizing every little thing and taking mental notes to be transcribed as emails she would send to her boss later. The difference was Hotsuma. She had no intention of telling her boss, or anyone else, about him.
    “And how does Onsen measure against Voda?”
    This was not the direction she wanted the conversation to go in. “They’re about the same, if you take away the exoticness of the Japanese theme. So it wouldn’t be a culture shock for you.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “There are other hotels too. Or you could skip hotels altogether and go hang out at a water park. That could be a lot of fun. You would have to be a lot more covert when you’re getting your jollies, but you would never be bored with all those people having fun around you.”
    That’s right. Turn the conversation away from Voda and her stupidity for mentioning it. It would be great if Hotsuma did go to Voda. Great for the hotel and for her. He would be close and their relationship could continue. The hotel would prosper too. But Voda was doing pretty well without supernatural help. Would Onsen still thrive, though? Lulu didn’t want to be the cause of such an old and grand hotel going under, competition or not.
    She said, “Hotsuma, maybe you should try to talk to Masato and negotiate with him to stay here as a free entity. If he doesn’t want to deal, you’re already halfway free so you could just leave.”
    “I’ll think about it.”
    “Good. You do that. I’m going to breakfast. I’ll see you in the hot springs in an hour or two.”
    “See you there.”
    Lulu watched as the tub stopper lifted and the water drained. Yup, it would definitely be weird using water for the rest of her life.
    She finished dressing and headed to the dining room for the hotel’s complimentary continental breakfast. Hunger made her walk fast. She had woken up starving. After all that sex and then skipping dinner… Skipping dinner?
    “Oh, shit,” she said under her breath.
    “Good morning,