sorry.
Amery placed her hand on his heart. “Ronin. It’s okay. I’m okay. Don’t do this. You’re not supposed to do this.”
He glanced at his opponent—holy shit, that was Blue—holding a bloody towel to his face as he sat in the middle of the practice ring.
What the fuck had he been thinking?
His mouth guard fell out when he started to speak. “Blue. Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
Blue rose to his feet with a grunt and shuffled over. His gaze slowly roamed over Amery’s face, and he murmured something in Portuguese. Then his eyes met Ronin’s. “I don’t blame you for the anger, my friend. But now we are even for our first fight.”
While Ronin’s lungs billowed, fighting for more air, his eyes followed Blue’s progress out of the room.
“I’m gonna let go of you now,” Knox said.
“Amery, baby, step back in case I fall.”
The woman didn’t budge. “Then I’ll catch you.”
He just about lost it again right then.
• • •
AMERY watched Ronin closely. He didn’t act like he’d gone three rounds with Blue. Evidently he’d gone six grappling rounds with two other ABC black belts before that. Seeing the man was still standing spoke volumes about his strength.
And about his heart.
He didn’t speak until they were in the private elevator. “How’d you know?” Ronin asked her.
“Blue sent Gil to find Knox when the fight started. Knox came and got me.”
“I’m sorry. You didn’t need to see that—or deal with me after what you’ve been through today.”
Amery pressed her cheek to his still sweaty chest. “You put yourself through that because of me. Did it help?”
“Some.”
“Did you get hit in the head?”
Ronin kissed her crown. “No. I just needed . . .”
“You don’t have to explain. I accept all parts of you, sweetheart.” She brushed her lips across his pectoral. “Even the parts I don’t understand. But that doesn’t mean I can’t worry you took it too far.”
He said nothing.
The elevator door opened to the penthouse, and she stayed glued to his side, even when he tried to shake her free.
“Look, Amery, I need a shower.”
“So do I. I’ll scrub your back; you scrub mine.”
Once they were in the master bathroom together, not happily, according to Ronin’s expression, she realized in all the times and all the places they’d had sex, they’d missed the shower.
The water kicked on. Steam filled the air. Ronin had been in the glass enclosure for a couple of minutes before she slipped in, plastering her body to his.
“I’ll be out in a minute,” he said, vigorously shampooing his hair.
“No, you won’t.” Nestling her face against his chest, she ran her fingertips up and down his sides.
“Amery—”
“Why won’t you look at me?”
“What? I’ve looked at you.”
“Not since earlier. Right after you saw—”
Ronin whirled around and faced the water. Rivers of bubbles raced down the hard planes of his shoulder blades and arrowed into the dip in his spine, between his buttocks.
Wasn’t like him to be intentionally rude, but turning his back to her seemed dismissive.
Amery snagged her loofah. Using the bubbles still coursing down his back, she began to draw small circles from his left shoulder to his right. His golden skin didn’t have any freckles or moles. No past or present blemishes that marred his muscled flesh. He had a few scars here and there. But mostly he was just beautiful.
And that ass. The man had an ass to die for. Not too much of a bubble butt, not too flat, those taut muscles creating a perfect mix of round and hard.
In a split second, Amery went from ogling his ass to ogling his cock.
His fully erect cock.
She glanced up at him.
But his eyes wouldn’t meet hers. They were too busy assessing the marks and bruises on her face. “Did you put ice on your eye to keep the swelling down?”
“Really, Ronin? I’m naked, touching your naked body, and you’d rather swap first aid tips?”
His eyes were so bleak when he finally looked at her.
Amery moved forward until his cock brushed her belly and her nipples touched his chest. “You’re failing my test.” He didn’t retreat, which was a good sign.
“What test is that?”
“You asked me to move in with you. And my answer will be a solid no if you deny me shower sex whenever I want it.”
“All it will take for you to move in with me is one round of shower sex?”
She twined her arms around his neck. “Yes. We’ve never done it in your shower. Maybe the reason is because your technique is lacking or something. So I can’t fully commit to living with you unless I’m assured you are up for getting down and dirty when we’re getting clean in the shower.”
“I feel dirty right now.”
Not the type of answer she wanted. “Talk to me.”
Ronin rested his forehead to hers. “I hate that someone hurt you.”
“I hate that you decided to punish yourself for someone hurting me. You could offer to kiss it and make it better.”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you if I kiss you.”
“So pin me against the shower wall and fuck me. Kiss me next time. And the time after that. And talking hurts more than anything because my teeth rub—”
“On the underside. Then your tongue keeps going to that sore spot and making it worse.” He feathered kisses over the side of her mouth that wasn’t swollen. Then he lightly slipped the tip of his tongue across the seam of her lips, tasting the bruised skin on the inner rim, showing utmost tenderness.
Then he was backing her into the tile wall.
Steam swirled around them. Water spattered against his back.
“Bruises on your beautiful neck. That kills me.” Soft, wet kisses followed the arc of her throat, and he followed the sweetness with heat, gifting her with a shiver-inducing pass of his warm breath on the spots he’d just kissed.
“Ronin, I’m fine.”
“I’m not fine. Not even fucking close to fine.”
“Then let’s make it fine. Better than fine.” Amery reached between them and jacked his shaft until he hissed with pleasure. “Good. I just want to make sure you’re as pumped for this as I am.”
He groaned against her throat when she repeatedly rubbed her thumb over the sweet spot beneath the head. “I am. Grab the shower bar.” Ronin slipped his hand behind her knee and pressed it into the wall. “Lift your leg. Higher. Come on. You practice yoga.”
There was her bossy man. She kept her eyes on his face as he raised her thigh so her kneecap was parallel to her shoulder.
“Hang on to me.” He moved in until they were groin to groin. Then he finally stroked her pussy. “You’re wet.”
“Being naked with you does that to me.”
He slowly fed his cock into her. He circled his fingers around her ankle, sliding her leg up, and pushed farther inside her.
“Omigod. That’s like . . .” She gasped when he did it again.
“Like what?”
“Stretching me so much that I can feel you on me and in me.”
“I want you wide open so I can hear that sexy little fucking moan when I do this.” He withdrew his cock and ground against her as he slid in deep again.
Amery moaned.
“That sound right there means I’m doing something right.”
“You’re doing everything right.”
His lips followed the shape of her ear from the lobe to the upper shell. “Fast, slow, sweet, rough . . . it’s so good every time. When I’m with you like this, it feels like I’m where I belong.”
Words like that . . . Even with the passion flowing between them so strongly she could scarcely think of anything else, his admission brought a quick sheen of tea
rs.
The heat between them took time to build. And Ronin dragged every bit of anticipation out of them both.
His hand gripping her ankle, his mouth licking and sucking on her skin. His cock powering into her. Every stroke created friction on her clit. Every brush of her nipples against his chest sent more tingles skittering across her flesh.
“Amery.”
“I know. Me too.” Her hand curled around the back of his neck. “Take us there.”
And he did, with the erotic precision he’d mastered. They came at the same time, which didn’t always happen. But when it did? Holy shit.
“Okay,” she panted. “You don’t suck at shower sex.”
Ronin chuckled against her throat. “Neither do you.” He slowly lowered her leg to the floor and eased out of her body. Those wonderfully rough hands skated up the curve of her hip, the bend in her waist, and over her breast. “Thank you, baby, for knowing what I needed and pushing me to take it.”
She traced the edge of his collarbone up to his throat and tipped his chin back to look into his face. Some of the tension had lessened, but not all. Not enough. “I know something else you need.”
He blinked in that measured way that let her know he was still thinking about sex. “What would that be?”
“You need to create something beautiful with these hands. And I need the connection with you and how you make me feel.”
“How’s that?”
“Like it’s more than just rope binding us.”
“It is more. A lot more. And yes, after all that’s gone on today, I could use the concentration and the focus entirely on you.” He twisted a section of her damp hair around his finger. “Would you give me that?”
“Of course. Should we make this a formal binding?”
His eyes searched hers. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“No. We haven’t done that in a while. Won’t it be more formal between us at the club?”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Okay.”
“Your robe is in the guest bedroom.” Ronin kissed her cheek. “Ten minutes.”
Amery quickly dried off. After slipping on her cherry blossom robe, she arranged her hair in a messy knot on the top of her head, securing it with a pair of ornamental chopsticks Shiori had given her.
Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply for ten breaths before she moved into the practice room.
Ronin had lit candles on the small altar in the corner. Rope work was a deeper kind of meditation for him even when he claimed it was all about her.
Amery was aware that Ronin meditated in his Zen garden as well as at the altar he’d installed in this room. Since she’d never dated a man who wasn’t Christian, she’d read up on Shintoism so she wasn’t so freakin’ clueless. It wasn’t an organized religion that expected followers to profess faith and adhere to strict rituals, but a spiritual way of life that celebrated Japanese traditions and history, as well as belief in kami—a sacred life force that dwells within all humans and nature.
Of all the people she’d met in her life who professed to live by the tenets of their belief system, Ronin Black actually did.
Waiting on her knees, facing the wall of ropes, was a form of meditation for her. She never felt subservient in this position. It allowed her anticipation to build, reminding her of the savasana pose at the end of yoga practice—where her mind floated and her body was still.
Ronin normally moved with such stealth, but he made a point of entering the practice room with enough noise to keep her from being startled. Usually their sessions or scenes were done in silence. She loved the auditory part of the connection before the binding. Hearing his ragged breathing. The thump of rope coils as they hit the floor. The rasping sound of the rope moving through his rough-skinned hands and the friction between two pieces when he crafted knots. Sometimes he pulled the rope back almost like a rubber band, so it made a resounding thud against her skin. Throughout the binding process, the whisper of his gi pants and the scratch of his callused hands on the satiny robe added to her already heightened sensations.
So today it surprised her when the soft, soothing sounds of music drifted from the corner.
“I’m glad you wore your hair up,” he murmured against her ear.
She said nothing.
“Aren’t you talking to me?”
“We don’t usually talk during a formal binding.”
“I thought we’d mix it up today.”
“Is that why there’s music?”
“Yes.”
The change in him made her nervous. “What is this music?”
“Ensemble pieces using a samisen, a koto, and a shakuhachi—traditional Japanese instruments.”
Very, very slowly, Ronin began to slip the robe off her shoulders.
“Is this in preparation for the club demo? Do you play music then?”
“No, it’s just background noise. Reminds me of the years I spent in the monastery.”
“Did you play an instrument?”
“I learned the basics of a shakuhachi—the bamboo flute.”
“Why that one?”
“Because it’s also a weapon.”
“Why—”
“Amery.” His hand on her lower back and his heated breath on her bared shoulder stopped the rapid-fire flow of words. “Why are you babbling?”
“Because this is so different from every other time we’ve been in this room, and I don’t know what to expect,” she blurted out.
“That’s not a bad thing. Can you face me please?”
Amery rose to her feet and turned around to see Ronin still on his knees. “Oh. Was I supposed to—”
“No, baby, stay like that. I wanted to see if you had bruising or marks on your stomach. Tell me where it hurts.”
She had the childish urge to push him away, but she tamped it down. “He hit me kind of dead center.”
“Did it knock the wind out of you?”
“No.”
He scooted closer and spanned her waist with his big hands. “Soreness by your ribs?”
“Mostly my face hurts.”
Ronin strung kisses from one side of her belly to the other. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing his palms into her shoulder blades. “I want to do a modified chest harness on you. It’s a complex pattern, and it’ll take some time. Are you up for that?”
“Whatever you want, rope master Black.”
He rocked to his feet. “This binding will be face-to-face.”
Amery wanted to ask why but refrained. “So do I get to ask what kind of rope you’re using?”
“Plain jute. Fairly small diameter.”
Ronin sauntered to the wall with the ropes and snagged four