A Dream of Ralph Lauren by ink142

"BRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIING."

Kagome shrieked as the alien noise assaulted her tender alcohol-laden brain. Pulling the covers over her head, she tried to shut out the stupid alarm clock.

She hated alarm clocks, which was why she never set them in the first place. Which would mean…

Bolting upright, Kagome rubbed her eyes and stared around her. The room did not look familiar. The bed did not feel familiar. And the dishevelled man next to her sure as hell was not familiar.

And oh my god, was she naked?

What have you done now, Kagome, what have you done now! "Who are you?" she croaked weakly, pulling the bed sheets around herself protectively.

"Your boss, you fool," Sesshoumaru Taisho said, getting out of bed and switching the alarm off. "We've been fucking for the last three months."

Kagome gaped at him. Because she certainly did not recognize him. Her boss, Sesshoumaru Taisho, with the tailored Armani suits and immaculate silky silver hair! The man she was waking up next to right now was… well, said hair was far from immaculate and silky at the moment.

If, in the off chance that this man was her boss, it would appear that even the no-nonsense touch-me-not Sesshoumaru Taisho suffered from bed head hair. Which would be why she hadn't recognized him at first.

She stared at the rest of the room as well. They were in a small hotel room with a tiny TV set and fluorescent lighting. There were clothes strewn all over the floor, and not just their clothes from last night, discarded in the throes of passion. Kagome counted no fewer than five days' worth of laundry lying around on the floor.

"Wait, this is where you live?" Still in shock, Kagome tried to reconcile the image of the neat, perfectionist Sesshoumaru Taisho with this disaster of a room.

And just where was his luxurious penthouse with balcony in a prime city location? Or at least a huge bedroom in the family's ancestral mansion. To her dismay the hotel room they were in was about the size of a small garage and the bed did not have silk sheets on it.

Sesshoumaru – he had pulled his hair off his face and he definitely had Taisho features – wasn't paying attention to her distress. Instead he was haphazardly shuffling papers and meeting briefs strewn about the tiny coffee table into a folder. Kagome rushed up to him in horror as he shoved a thick contract in as well. "Wait, that's the Shikon Incorporated contract! Be careful with that, isn't it worth five hundred million dollars?" They'd been working for weeks on the damn thing and here he was ruining the client's copy.

Not to mention, this was Sesshoumaru Taisho, who fired people over creases in paper, say less of coffee spills.

"So what?" shrugged Sesshoumaru. "You can make another copy. Oh, by the way, there's no bathroom in this place. You'll probably have to wash up at the office."

Kagome's jaw hit the floor. She had no idea this was how the almighty Sesshoumaru Taisho lived! They'd only ever had sex on conference tables and copy machines, and this was the first time she'd been to his place. Last night she had probably been too drunk to notice the absolute squalor of the place, but this revelation was too much, even for her.

He must have seen her expression, because Sesshoumaru laughed scornfully. "This is a bachelor's pad, Kagome dear. Not a pansy rich boy's apartment. Wake up!"

Then he shook her shoulders hard.

. . .

Kagome bolted upright.

The entire Management department was staring at her in vague amusement. She blinked.

Apparently, she had fallen asleep at her desk. Her colleague and best friend, Sango, was desperately shaking her shoulders in attempts to wake her. And who else was watching her with narrowed eyes, who else but Sesshoumaru Taisho? Head of the Strategic Management team, an angelic-looking nightmare.

Kagome nearly wept with relief. His beautiful silver hair… not a single strand out of place. His suit… so perfectly ironed that it had to be the work of one of the best dry-cleaning services in town.

She leapt out of her seat and threw herself around his neck in thankfulness.

"You're not messy!"

He stiffened visibly. Everyone's eyes remained frozen to the unlikely sight; Kagome Higurashi, associate, clinging to Sesshoumaru Taisho, ranking senior consultant executive, head of their division, without doubt the BOSS. No one breathed.

"The Shikon Incorporated contract you were finalizing last night, Miss Higurashi, do you have it?" Sesshoumaru asked finally.

On her desk. That's right, Kagome remembered staying late to finish off the nightmarish contract. Somehow, she must have fallen asleep in the middle of the night… and ended up dreaming.

Kagome was so, so thankful it was only a dream.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled in embarrassment, detaching herself from his crisp white collar. "I just… had a little nightmare."

"Oh really?" her boss asked sarcastically. No one did sarcasm like Sesshoumaru Taisho could – it rolled off his tongue like acidic silk. "Touch me again, Higurashi, and I'll turn your workload a waking nightmare."

Kagome would rather deal with a Sesshoumaru who would make her work an eternity of overtime, than a Sesshoumaru who left his clothes on the floor and shoved papers around. "Yes, sir," she said hurriedly, scrambling to put the contract in his expectant hands.

"Back to work!" snapped Sesshoumaru, and all the spectators scurried back to their desks.

"Um, Mr. Taisho!" Kagome rushed after him as he returned to his office, hoping she didn't sound too suspicious. There was one little thing she needed to clarify. "Sorry, I have a question?"

He looked at her impatiently.

Kagome swallowed nervously. "Um, what is your home address? I, er, need to add it to the contract index page."

He stared at her disbelievingly. "Twentieth floor, Riveria Towers, Ebisu."

Blessed, wondrous relief filled Kagome. "Oh, Ebisu?" she laughed gaily. Ebisu was one of the most fashionable, expensive districts to live in, full of new real estate developments that catered to the exclusive crowd. "Does it have a balcony?"

He looked at her like she was daft.

So, Sesshoumaru Taisho lived in a penthouse and was a control freak of a boss with crisp suits and great hair, and he had not spared her anything more than a dismissive glance thus far. So far, so correct.

Now her boss was eyeing her suspiciously. Sesshoumaru Taisho, was, after all, astute. "Everything alright, Higurashi?" The last thing he needed was for one of his team to bail on him due to psychological problems.

Contrary to what some previous employees' doctors said, Sesshoumaru Taisho did not believe that he induced said psychological problems.

"Well," Kagome began honestly, "I had a nightmare last night."

"Is that so?" he said politely. Really, if it had been any other person than Higurashi he would have used choice words by now. But Higurashi was their youngest and brightest associate yet, and from day one Sesshoumaru Taisho knew he would have to tolerate a certain degree of bubbliness from her.

Still, she was talking to him about her nightmares. This conversation was teetering precariously on the verge of uncomfortable and highly inappropriate.

"I'm sorry," rushed Kagome. "It's just that I dreamt that I was at your house. And for some reason it wasn't a perfect designer house like the kind you'd live in! Rather, it was some crummy motel…" She trailed off, gulping at his blank expression.

What Sesshoumaru Taisho resisted asking was, what her dreamself was doing in his dreamapartment.

Actually he didn't want to know.

Actually judging by her flaming red face, he could guess.

"Higurashi," he said calmly, pulling open the top drawer of his rich mahogany desk. Sesshoumaru extracted what looked like a receipt and handed it to her nonchalantly. "Since you obviously have the spare time to chit-chat with me, you obviously have the spare time to pick up my dry-cleaning."

Kagome gulped. Now that he mentioned it, she had a mountain of work on her desk. Shakily, she took the receipt and bowed, ready to flee.

Sesshoumaru paused, taking a shred of pity on the girl. She really did look traumatized by her nightmare.

"Higurashi," he said, glancing at the laundry receipt she now held. "Bring back my Ralph Lauren, and ask them when the Valentino will be ready."

"Your… Ralph Lauren, sir?" Kagome's eyes were wide.

Happily, she high-tailed it out of the boss's office, heart thumping with joy. Sesshoumaru didn't wear cheap suits, and they probably weren't sleeping together.

Kagome knew that all was right with the world.

End Story

A/N: This story is dedicated to everyone who loves a man in tailored suit.

Thank you for reading.