“I cannot fucking believe we are even having this conversation. And excuse me for being a total selfish bitch, but after years I’m done going to strictly gay hangouts. Why is that? Not because Ronin decreed it, but because I can’t count the number of times you—both of you—have ditched me during happy hour and I ended up going home by myself anyway. So the way I see it? You’re pissy that I’m not at your beck and call anymore to fill the void when you get bored and don’t have anyone else to go out with. But guess what? I don’t give a shit what you think about Ronin. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions about things, including who I choose to spend my free time with, so suck it up. Both of you.”
Chaz and Emmylou stared at her in total shock.
“So, is there anything else? Or are you still going to try and convince me the time I spend with Ronin is the real issue here?”
Silence.
“Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I do have actual work to finish.” Amery spun on her heel and headed to her office.
She let out a little scream when she was abruptly jerked back. Then both Chaz and Emmylou were right in her face.
“Looks like North Dakota has grown some big, sharp teeth. Brava, darlin’, but that’s not what this is about.”
Amery snapped her teeth, which caused both Chaz and Emmylou to take a step back. It just further annoyed her when Chaz and Emmylou exchanged a pointed look. “For Christ’s sake. Tell me.”
“You want to play hardball? We’re game. We’ve heard things about Ronin from people who’ve dealt with him,” Emmylou said.
“He’s a scary man, chère,” Chaz said. “And the cautionary tales we’ve heard don’t make him fairy-tale prince material like he’s led you to believe.”
“He’s an eighth-degree black belt and a martial arts master; of course he’s scary.” Amery’s eyes narrowed. “And who exactly did you hear these cautionary tales from? Because I know Ronin’s confidantes, and they wouldn’t tell tales out of school. Literally. So that makes me question your source.”
Chaz looked cowed, but Emmylou remained defiant. “All I can say is it came from a reliable source. Someone who’s in the Denver sports world.”
Where would Emmylou have picked up something like that? Then she remembered Emmylou had done on-site work with the Rockies last week. And the one person in the Rockies organization who might have any interest in her relationship with Ronin was . . . Tyler.
No. A sick feeling took hold of her. Surely Emmylou wouldn’t listen to Tyler. “Tell me the name of your reliable source.”
When Emmylou dropped her gaze, Amery knew.
“Tyler Pessac, my self-absorbed asshole ex who annihilated my confidence and was the direct cause of me licking my emotional wounds for over a year, is your reliable source?”
Fury boiled up. Amery inhaled two deep calming breaths before she spoke again. “Did you even consider, for one fucking minute, that Tyler approaching you with information about the dangerous Ronin Black might be born out of jealousy? Tyler saw me with Ronin at the Colorado Sports Banquet. He saw how happy I was. He knows Ronin is a better athlete, better looking, better connected, and a better man in all the ways that really count. He also saw that Ronin is crazy about me. And that made Tyler a little crazy because the only time I ever appealed to him after he started cheating on me? Was when another man was attracted to me. That’s the only thing that ever validated my worth in his eyes.
“You know how long it took me to dig out of that pit after Tyler dumped me. Or at least I thought you did because you were there supposedly supporting me. So I can’t believe . . .” The word came out choked and she took a second to breathe. “I can’t believe you’d take that lying sack of shit’s side and even bring this up with me. Especially when I’m truly happy with a man for the first time in my life.”
Chaz turned on Emmylou. “Tyler was your source? Are you fucking kidding me?” Then he faced Amery, his eyes filled with remorse. “I swear to god I had no idea or I wouldn’t have—”
“Back off. Both of you. Leave her alone,” Molly said hotly. She walked over and inserted herself between Amery and Chaz and Emmylou. “I came back to get my purse, so I overheard Amery having to defend herself to you two. Friends don’t do that shit and you both know it. Now get out of this office and don’t show your faces again until you can apologize. I mean it.”
Chaz and Emmylou both slunk out.
Immediately Molly gave Amery a hug. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I overheard them bitching about you spending all your time with Ronin and I thought that’s all they were going to talk about with you. If I’d known what they really had planned . . .”
“Molly. It’s okay. Thank you for jumping in.”
“No, thank you for teaching by example. I’ve learned so much from you—it’s important to stand up for myself and be there for my friends.”
“You are a good friend.” Amery squeezed her one last time and closed herself in her office.
The shitty start to her morning continued throughout the day. She lost another existing client to the company’s in-house restructuring, and a potential client went to another agency. She spent more time on the phone than working, but at the end of the day, she couldn’t remain in her office a minute longer. After changing into workout clothes, she climbed into her car and headed toward Black Arts.
Maybe beating the shit out of a punching bag would cleanse her mind, body, and spirit.
CHAPTER TWENTY
YONDAN Deacon McCloud was a mean son of a bitch.
Amery fantasized about throwing him on his ass. Kicking him in the shins. Slamming her hands into his ears with her newly learned thunderclap technique. Sinking her teeth into his tattooed biceps.
The man claimed that missing a self-defense class meant he needed to push her harder. He showed her new moves and drilled her over and over until she was gasping for breath. Then he’d start in again.
He made Sensei Black look like a kindergarten teacher.
Not that she’d share that insight with the dojo’s Grand Pooh-Bah.
She used a hand towel to mop her face.
“Come on, flavor of the month. Quit stalling. We’re not done.”
“You’re killing me.”
He grinned.
Holy shit. That was the first time she’d ever seen Deacon smile. It kicked his attractiveness up a notch or ten, but it also made him look ten times scarier. Bald, tattooed, excessively muscled, and overly intense men hadn’t appealed to her before, mostly because she’d never been around any. She definitely saw the appeal now.
“So, you gearing up to kiss me or what? ’Cause that sure ain’t a defensive fighting stance, cream puff.”
“Cream puff? I’ll show you cream puff.” Sick of Deacon’s smarmy comments about being Ronin’s flavor of the month and her lack of defensive know-how, Amery twisted the towel, intending to snap him with it. But he snagged the end and did some fast maneuver that wrapped the towel around her own wrist. Then he twisted it until her arm was behind her back and she dropped to her knees. She gasped, “Uncle.”
He laughed—a little maniacally. “Sucks when your own weapon is used against you, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Deacon released her. “Get up and let’s go again.”
Amery muttered, “Sadistic bastard,” as she rolled to her feet.
“I’m not a bastard—my parents were married when my ma birthed me. But sadistic? Yeah, I’ll cop to that one.” He switched his stance. “Block me.”
Before Amery gathered her wits, Deacon was in her face, sweeping her legs out from under her. She hit the mat butt first. Rather than lie there humiliated, she latched on to his pant leg and tugged.
Deacon turned his upper body, which allowed her to kick him in the back of the knee. He immediately went down to one knee. He raised a surprised brow. “Good work. Self-defense is eighty percent improvisation in the moment.”
“What’s the other twenty percent?”
<
br /> “Ten percent is using learned skills and the last piece of that pie chart is utilizing fear. Without fear we’d have no need for self-defense.”
“Gee, Yondan, you almost sounded like Sensei with that bit of philosophy,” she teased.
“I can only hope his influence is rubbing off on me. Now show me strikes.”
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
By the time she finished, the class had run thirty minutes over and she dripped sweat.
Yondan looked as fresh as a daisy. “I’ll let Sandan Zach know you’re caught up with your class.”
“Thank you.”
“You can find your way out of the maze?”
Amery nodded.
He offered her a slight bow and exited the room.
She’d intended to go straight to the locker room and change, but she took a wrong turn and ended up in an area she’d never been in before. She stopped in front of a five-foot-wide window that looked into a training room. Given the dark tint of the glass, she doubted the people inside the room could see out.
Her gaze was immediately drawn to Ronin at the front of the classroom.
With his hair pulled back, his shrewd eyes assessing his students, his don’t-fuck-with-me posture—he was a magnificent sight to behold.
He wore black gi pants and a red gi top. Knotted at his waist was his black belt with eight red stripes embroidered across the width and his master level in Japanese below it to the tip of his belt. The upper patch on the left side of his chest read SENSEI BLACK. Below that was the American flag patch, a smaller Japanese flag below that, and four small patches she couldn’t read. He had more patches on the sleeves of his gi top—on both sides—and on the right side of his chest was the new Black Arts logo she’d designed.
She grinned. Hadn’t taken much time for the design to be integrated.
Since Amery didn’t have anything better to do, and she figured he couldn’t see her anyway, she decided to observe him in teaching mode with what looked like advanced black belt students.
After the sixteen students rose to their feet, he paired them off. Even when they were performing warm-up exercises, Ronin corrected strikes and postures. And more than a few students tensed up when he assisted them. Sensei Black definitely ruled with an iron fist.
As she watched him interact, she didn’t see a glimmer of the Ronin she knew. No smile. No banter. His posture was as rigid as the set of his jaw.
The disjointed feeling should’ve made it easier to slink away from this man she didn’t recognize. But it locked her in place, keeping her hopeful she’d catch a glimpse of her lover.
When the grappling started, she expected he’d sit on the sidelines, but he surprised her again and forced each student to demonstrate the technique on him.
Or maybe a more apt description was they all tried to demonstrate the technique and their teacher summarily dumped them on their face into the mat.
It wasn’t Ronin’s facial expression or body language that telegraphed his displeasure that not a single student had properly demonstrated the technique. He barked out an order and even Amery jumped.
A student left and returned within a few minutes with Knox.
Shihan Knox practiced the technique and immediately employed it perfectly. Amery suspected Ronin had sandbagged his response. Then the sensei challenged Shihan once again, after he’d given a slow-motion demo on the basics of the technique.
That time Shihan ended up in a submission hold.
As he did the next time.
That’s when Amery realized neither man had held back.
And still, even with Shihan Knox in the room, there wasn’t any sign of the Ronin she knew. She really didn’t recognize him when the kicking sequence began. Sensei’s kicks were hard and lightning fast against the practice bag.
How much have you ever really known of this man?
After she’d calmed down, she’d been grateful when he disabled the attackers that night. But now seeing how quickly he could explode into violence and how impassive he remained through it, she knew he’d kept a large part of who he was hidden from her. Right now his ability with ropes didn’t frighten her nearly as much as his easy segue into calculated violence.
She fought a shiver and stepped back.
At that moment Ronin looked up and she swore he knew she was there, breaking the rules.
Amery ducked down and managed to sneak out before anyone caught her.
Or so she thought.
An hour later when Ronin showed up at her place, he was in a mood. Usually after he’d washed away the sweat and violence that clung to him after hours in the dojo, he reconnected with that Zen vibe and he rarely let her see his agitation.
Not tonight.
She knew if she asked what’d wound him so tight, he’d refuse to confide in her, but she guessed his students’ lack of progress played a big part in his edginess—not that she could mention she’d watched him with a class, since that was a total breach of the “no observation” rule.
Hoping to improve his mood, Amery offered to use her personal massager on him, joking that it’d finally be used as the manufacturer had intended. Instead of what she’d planned, rather naively, it turned out—to rub every inch of the vibrating head over his muscular body to try and soothe him—Ronin had set his own plans into motion.
Only after he’d caressed her, aroused her, and divested her of every stitch of her clothing did she notice he’d cleared off her coffee table.
“Ronin? What are you—”
“You know what I want,” he murmured against the curve of her neck as he knotted her hair on top of her head with a pen. “If you don’t want this, tell me no.”
Her mouth remained closed.
“Good.” Then he brought out camouflage rope.
She shivered when his fingertips traced the outsides of her arms to her wrists.
“Arms behind your back. Make sure you’ve got good circulation because this might take a while.” He brushed a tender kiss across her shoulder. “I’m practicing tethered turtle on you.”
While his touches were gentle, she sensed him hanging on to his control by a thread. Since he’d demanded honesty from her, she deserved the same courtesy. “You seem on edge.”
“I am.” Ronin’s voice burned her ear. “Why do you think I enforce the ‘no observation’ rule in my dojo, Amery?”
Shit, shit, shit. Master Black had seen her through the two-way glass or else his super-ninja instincts had sensed her.
Or maybe . . . Yondan Deacon told him you were skulking around after your lesson.
Dammit. Maybe letting her roam free had been some kind of test to see if she’d follow the rules even when there didn’t appear to be anyone around to enforce them.
Well, she’d flunked that test big-time.
“I asked you a question,” he said in that pseudo-reasonable tone.
“No, sir, I don’t know why you have that rule.”
“I set that rule to allow my students to fail in private because failure is the best way to learn, adapt, and change.”
“Are you going to punish me for my failure since I broke that rule?”
“No. You were under Yondan’s supervision tonight; it’s his call on how to deal with it.”
That wasn’t reassuring. “So this turtle pose or whatever it’s called isn’t a punishment pose?”
Ronin’s lips swept across the shell of her ear. “You sound disappointed.”
“No! I’m not.”
“If I wanted to punish you, I’d use a hojojutsu binding.” His arm snaked under hers and he wrapped his fingers around her throat. “Those ties include neck restraints.”
She swallowed hard.
“The challenge isn’t in the binding but in the chase and capture beforehand.”
Holy crap. A chase? Then a capture? That sounded a little scary.
“I feel your heart racing, Amery. Relax. Tethered turtle pose celebrates the duality of the creatur
e—the beauty of a hard exterior that protects the inner softness.”
“Oh.”
“You ready to begin?”
“Yes.”
“Climb onto the coffee table and I’ll arrange you.”
Once he’d positioned her, she rested her cheek against the cool wood, breathing in the scent of lemon furniture polish. Her knees were spread wide, but the rest of her body was curled in—a turtle in its shell.
“Beautiful.” He scraped his fingers down her naked back from her shoulders to the curve of her ass. “Breathe, baby, because it’s going to get tight.”
Those words, uttered in his velvety rasp, jolted through her like a shot of pure adrenaline. Anticipation was her new drug of choice administered by the man with magic hands. She craved that sense of helplessness as he bound her . . . and then the calm he bestowed on her that followed after the binding.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his black T-shirt hit the floor. He stood close enough that she saw his toes peeking out from beneath the frayed hem of his worn jeans.
Lust slid in and piggybacked on Amery’s anticipation. She knew exactly what he looked like looming above her—the strong, sexy, determined rope master. His muscles flexing. His dark hair untamed around his chiseled face. His eyes would flicker from amber brown to inky black, gauging her every reaction as he knotted the ropes and stretched them against her pale skin. His full lips would be pursed with concentration. His jaw set. His breathing faster than normal because her submission excited him.
It excited her too, more than she’d ever imagined. But along with the excitement was fear. And a little shame, which she understood was part of the appeal for her because it was shame she could control.
Ronin placed a kiss on her skin, as he always did. “I’m going to start tying you now.”
And as always, her pulse leaped when she heard the whisper of friction as he uncoiled the rope.
Relax. Breathe.
He knotted and twisted the ropes, starting at her ankles and working his way forward, until her entire body was covered. She felt as if he’d spun a spider’s web around her. Although it’d taken him a while to bind her, she hadn’t drifted into the floaty headspace yet.
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