“Did you?”
“No! I haven’t seen Naomi for years. But I can see where my brother would believe it because I introduced them in the first place. I told you that Ronin and Naomi met at a Japanese social club. What I didn’t tell you? It wasn’t a random meeting. My marriage . . .” She looked away. “Wasn’t good. I married against my mother and my grandfather’s wishes and against my own common sense. Anyway, when it became too unbearable to endure, Grandfather promised to handle my divorce and all the legal stuff if I did one thing for him.”
“Set Ronin up with Naomi.”
“Yes. In Japan, arranged marriages aren’t unusual between families with similar interests. We knew Ronin wouldn’t ever agree to it, so we had to take a different tack. Since Naomi’s family owns banks in Japan, Ronin would know Naomi wasn’t after him for his money. But those banks were in trouble—I don’t know the exact details, but Okada Foods transferring twenty percent of their financial business to a different bank would have a tremendous impact.”
“But why Naomi?”
“She’s beautiful. Cultured. She’s from a respected family. It appeared she was successful in business in her own right—but that was just another family fabrication. She lived modestly—which also appealed to my brother, although he didn’t know it wasn’t Naomi’s choice to live that way. My grandfather understood my brother would suspect anyone he introduced him to. And since I was supposedly in Denver on business, Ronin promised he’d escort me to official Okada functions. The only reason Ronin went to the Japanese social club with me that night was because they were holding an auction of shunga art.”
“Naomi was there.”
She nodded. “He and Naomi struck up a conversation about the pieces and ended up in a good-natured bidding war. Ronin won, but he asked Naomi out for dinner. Within two months, they were seeing each other exclusively. They swapped one kind of club for another. His rope expertise isn’t a secret in the jujitsu martial arts world—he’s a record holder in Japan for the second-fastest time for a hojojutsu tie.”
She’d been on the receiving end of that particular skill. “Did Naomi know about Ronin’s rope mastery before they met?”
Shiori nodded. “Naomi took to the club lifestyle quickly—as I’m sure Ronin told you. During the time they were together, she kept up the pretense of their relationship—volatile as it was—and I’d secretly hoped they’d fallen for each other for real. But then . . .” She picked up her drink and drained it. “Ronin tried to break it off with her after she’d disrespected him. Then Naomi told him everything had been set up by his family. She only wanted his money and the status she’d get by being married to an Okada heir.”
Amery closed her eyes when the sick churning in her stomach made her dizzy.
“My brother cut off all contact with me, with our grandfather and our mother. No phone calls, no e-mails, nothing. For one year. He believed we’d infiltrated his dojo and planted spies, so he released all his instructors except for Shihan.”
“I can’t even fathom his sense of betrayal and animosity toward you.”
“It’s the worst thing I’ve ever been through. Realizing what I’d done and how much I’d lost by betraying my only brother’s trust. I’d known it was wrong at the time, but I went along with it because I was so desperate to get out of a marriage that was suffocating me.”
Amery couldn’t feel sorry for Shiori—she’d made her choices. But their grandfather had manipulated Ronin, which would make Ronin question the loyalty of everyone around him and trust no one.
So by not telling him she’d taken the Okada offer, she’d given him reason to fear her feelings for him weren’t real.
When have you ever told him how you really feel anyway?
“I don’t know what happened or why Naomi returned to Denver, but the truth is she’s the psycho type who’d show up here just because she’s heard Ronin is happy and she wants to fuck with him and fuck that up for him.” Shiori took her hand. “He will try to close himself off from you, and you can’t let him do that. You should go to him. He needs you.”
Amery shooed Shiori out the door and got in her car.
• • •
AFTER Ronin’s run-in with Naomi, he returned to a private practice room at the dojo and worked on kata forms for two hours, until he was drenched in sweat. Reaching the exercise high dulled some of his rage. But it wasn’t enough. He headed up to the roof, ditched his gi, dove into the pool, and started to swim laps.
The water temp cooled more than his hot head. In the repetitive rhythm of his strokes and the silence, he found his calm center. Where maintaining breath work required every ounce of concentration. Where time was irrelevant. He could’ve been in the pool ten minutes or four hours. His existence boiled down to stroke, stroke, breathe, stroke, stroke, breathe.
When he had depleted all the oxygen in his muscles, he stopped and floated on his back, arms and legs spread out in an X, still aiming for sensory deprivation.
Then he heard footsteps across the concrete deck.
A rush of happiness, of completeness, of need, of relief flowed over him.
Amery.
He let his feet sink to the bottom and he stood.
She waited at the edge of the steps, holding a bath sheet.
Ronin slowly exited the pool and let Amery wrap the big towel around his body. He remained still as she wrapped herself around him.
They stayed like that, bound together by unspoken words until the night chill caused him to shiver.
Amery eased back and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Let’s get you warmed up. I turned the fireplace on.”
Inside the penthouse he noticed she’d moved a chair directly in front of the fire. After swapping the wet towel for his favorite stadium blanket, she settled him in the chair and swaddled him in fleece. Once she’d gently towel dried his hair, she ran her fingers through it, gifting him with the soothing touch he craved.
Warmth from the fire and her TLC seeped into his muscles and bones, turning his blood sluggish and his breathing slow. Physically and mentally exhausted, he dozed off.
A loud pop awoke him.
Startled, he glanced over at Amery sitting in the chair next to him, staring into the fireplace. Since she appeared to be brooding, he watched the golden glow of flames flickering across her beautiful face.
“Didn’t your mother teach you it’s impolite to stare?” she asked softly.
“She taught me to appreciate beauty.”
Amery looked at him. “Are you warmed up?”
“Yes. Thank you.” He paused. “I need—”
“To go to bed. It’s late. And you’ve had a trying day.”
Not the answer he wanted.
“But it seems a shame to waste this ambience.”
She pushed her chair back and spread another blanket on the floor in front of the fire before she started stripping off her clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m apologizing with my body tonight. We’ll get to the talking stuff tomorrow.”
Ronin stood and tried to kiss her, but she gave him a sultry laugh and ducked her head.
“I’m the seducer here, Master Black.” She playfully tugged the blanket. “Lose the cover.”
He let the blanket drop.
Amery’s eyes ate him up. “Handy that you swam naked.” She moved in to him, rubbing her bare skin against his, teasing his lips with flirty kisses. Reaching between them, she stroked his shaft, which had already gone hard. “You like the idea of me being on top.”
“I like the idea of us naked together any way I can get you.”
She slid her soft lips over his jaw, eliciting a sigh, and then down his neck, eliciting another. “There’s no sexy, romantic way to get us on the floor. So you first.”
He crouched down and rolled to his back.
Amery followed him down. Her knees bracketed his hips, and she hung above him on all fours. “How is it possible you look even more beautifully f
ierce by firelight?”
“Baby, you don’t have to sweet-talk me. I’m a sure thing.”
“As a gorgeous specimen of manliness, you should be able to take a compliment because you should be used to it.” He shivered when she pressed her lips in the hollow beneath his ear. “If you’re cold, I can get the blanket.”
“No.” Ronin pushed her hair over her shoulder. “I want to watch you moving on me.”
Her teeth grazed his earlobe. She zigzagged her tongue down to his nipples. Sweetly tormenting them with her mouth while the silky ends of her hair swung against the side of his body like a hundred ghostly fingertips.
She didn’t tease him until the point he begged her—but almost. Finally she circled his cock at the base and adjusted her hips, drawing the tip across her wet entrance before pushing down on a slow glide. She slanted her mouth over his and swallowed his groan.
So good. Every damn time. He felt enveloped by her completely—she’d caged him in, her chest against his, her forearms by his head, her elbows above his shoulders, her hair a veil of softness around his head. Every time he breathed in, his lungs were filled with the scent of her.
Ronin palmed her hips, feeling the muscles in her ass flexing as she rode him. The heat from the fire warmed his left side, but the fire she’d started inside him turned his blood white hot.
But she kept the pace slow. Steady. The perfect mix of passion and comfort. She was the perfect mix of everything he’d ever wanted in a woman and had lost hope that he’d ever find.
She broke the kiss and sighed against his lips. “You make my head spin, Ronin.” She used her teeth to scrape the razor stubble on his jaw. “Even when I’m the seducer, I am utterly, completely, and totally seduced by you.”
“Baby.”
Amery kissed his chin. The curve of his lips. His cheeks. The corners of his eyes. His temples. Then she pushed back and balanced on her knees. Keeping her eyes on his, she lifted and lowered onto his cock.
“You’re beautiful.” The curves and planes of her body were a golden delight, bathed in the firelight.
She grabbed his hands, placing one on each of her thighs. “Touch me with these hands and make me feel beautiful.”
Ronin stroked her legs, her arms, her shoulders, her belly.
When she arched back, wrapping her hands around his shins, his thumb delved into the heart of her.
“Yes, do that.” She rode him harder, and he knew her orgasm was close.
The moment her body stiffened, he pinched her nipple and her clit simultaneously.
She gasped. Her head fell back and her nails dug into the outside of his calves.
Ronin couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her abandonment to the moment and so openly sharing her joy were breathtaking.
As soon as she floated back down and began to move again, a challenge in her eye, he jackknifed up and took her mouth in a brutal kiss.
Skin on skin, mouth on mouth, heat and passion ratcheted up his need. Hips pumping, one hand bunched in her hair, one gripping her ass, he came fast and he came hard.
Her cunt clamped around his shaft with a hot pulse, her tongue stabbed into his mouth in the same rhythm she fucked him. And she didn’t relent, driving harder and harder against him until she came again.
Ronin panted against her neck. Her hands stroked and soothed him as he tried to find any coherent thought beyond, Goddamn, that was fucking good.
They stayed locked together, hearts thundering, light and shadows dancing across their bodies.
“I was right,” she murmured against the top of his head. “The fireplace does add ambience.”
He wrapped his hand around her throat, holding her chin so she couldn’t squirm away. “What you bring to me is more than I ever thought I’d have.” He kissed her once. “Thank you.”
She eased back and pushed to her feet. She folded the blankets and picked up her clothes. Then she clicked off the fireplace and held out her hand. “Let me take you to bed.”
In his bedroom, Amery tucked her body into his, her cheek against his heart, her belly pressed into his hip, her left leg over the top of his.
He could actually feel her eyelashes sweep over his pectoral every time she blinked, so he knew she wasn’t asleep. So why wasn’t she pushing him to talk?
Because she didn’t want to ruin this time together. Nothing would get solved tonight anyway.
• • •
DESPITE his stress-filled day, Ronin slept like a log.
He woke to an empty bed. After he donned a clean pair of gi pants and a T-shirt, he tracked her down.
He didn’t find her mainlining coffee in the kitchen or gazing out the windows in the dining area. But he spied her purse on the couch and realized she hadn’t gone far.
Just as he headed to the elevator, the door opened and she stepped out fully dressed for work. Before she uttered a word, his mouth was on hers. He loved that surprised eep she made. He cupped her face in his palms and kissed her thoroughly.
“Happy morning to you too,” she panted against his neck.
“I don’t like waking up alone. Been three very long days that I’ve suffered through that.”
“Sorry. I peeked out the window and saw all the swirling black and gray clouds, so I went to the roof for a closer look.” She pecked his mouth. “The brooding sky reminds me of you.”
Ronin stroked her cheek. “Brooding man didn’t scare you away this time.”
“No. This time I was prepared. This time I came to you.”
He murmured, “And so you did.” She had no idea how happy that made him.
“We need to talk, but not without coffee.”
He let her do her thing in his kitchen. She’d added homey touches, including a grain silo–shaped cookie jar and new oven mitts. He’d tamped down his impatience to have her in his home and in his bed as soon as possible. If it was easier for her to get here piece by piece, then he’d let it happen her way. “I was surprised to see you last night.”
“I figured you weren’t expecting company when I watched you swimming laps as if you were racing Michael Phelps.”
“How long did you watch?”
“Long enough to know to leave you alone.”
“So you just sensed my cosmic distress?”
She shook her head. “Shiori came by. It freaked me out because I worried something bad had happened to you. Then, after talking to her, I realized something bad had happened to you, just not what I’d expected.”
“Not what I’d expected either.”
Amery poured two mugs and slid one across the counter. “What was it like seeing Naomi?”
The hot coffee scalded his tongue. “No different from the last time I saw her. She talked shit, made threats. Trying to rile me and to get people to notice her.” He watched the steam rising from her cup. “What did Shiori tell you?”
“She didn’t say anything about what went on last night because she didn’t know.”
“But she did fill you in on how it played out three and a half years ago between Naomi and me,” he said curtly.
When Amery didn’t respond right away, his gut clenched at the thought of digging up this mess again. Of Amery knowing. “Did Shiori divulge all the dirty details?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I thought we needed to talk about it.”
Ronin glanced up. “You know that Naomi was a plant from my grandfather to align her family’s business interests with ours. You know that I spent two goddamn years of my life with her, believing we had something . . . when it was all a lie. Everything was a lie.”
“That’s not what you initially told me,” she said softly. “Why?”
“Do you think I wanted you to know that my family paid a woman to be with me? To love me? And that I was so stupid and so goddamn desperate for it that I believed it was real? It appeared that Naomi accepted everything about me, and she never cared about my financial status. Surely a gold digger would’ve asked for money or support, but she never broached
the subject. Which made it so fucking . . . humiliating when she told me that my grandfather had been giving her money every month as an incentive to stay with me.”
Amery moved in behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Don’t let her back in your head. She doesn’t get to fuck up your life again. I won’t let that happen. It’s my life now too.”