Unraveled

  Knox swung his arms and did a couple of frog jumps to loosen his muscles. She stared at his crotch, wondering if he wore a cup. Wondering if there was any way he could grip the rocks so she could climb him and ride him.

  “Eyes off my junk,” he warned.

  Then he started up the wall, moving across it like a spider. He reached the top in less than two minutes.

  Dammit. Evidently long legs and long arms trumped small and agile.

  She high-fived him. “Looking good.”

  “Thanks.” He took a long pull from his water bottle.

  “I love the way your butt muscles flex and bunch. I’d definitely tap that ass.”

  Knox spit water across the floor at her comment.

  On the second rock wall, Knox ran into a little trouble, but he still beat her time by a minute and a half. Which, when she looked at the performance wall where the climb times were divided into performance levels, she could see that Knox hit expert level on both climbs.

  Sneaky fucker.

  She stayed close as he removed the safety rigging and helmet.

  “Something on your mind, She-Cat?”

  “Was this a trick? You’re some kind of rock-climbing stud?”

  “No. But I’m happy you think my technique—my winning technique—makes me a stud.”

  “We still have the obstacle course left, so don’t think you have this competition in the bag.” When he didn’t respond, she said, “But you have to admit you’ve got some experience with rock climbing.”

  “We did rappelling exercises in combat training—which is going down a wall as fast as possible. But all that focused on was a stealth exit.”

  “Is there anything you haven’t done?”

  “Lots of things. What I did get to do Uncle Sam paid for. It’s not like I could afford to go heli-skiing or surf the big breakers in Hawaii.”

  Shiori flopped down beside him and swigged from her water bottle. “I can afford to do those adventures, but I never have.”

  “No interest?”

  “No time. Between my job and my martial-arts training, if I had an extra hour, I shadowed Mistress Keiko.”

  “When I see all you’ve accomplished in your thirty-five years? You make me feel like a slacker.”

  She gave him a peck on the mouth. “You’re far from that, Shihan. But fair warning: I’m gonna rock this motherfucking obstacle course.”

  “I’ve no doubt of that.” He tugged on her ponytail. “But you’ll have to bring your A game to beat me. Because we did run lots of obstacle courses in the army.”

  Shit. She was doomed. Maybe if she did a little trash-talking she could throw him off his game. She shrugged. “Don’t count on it. You’re older now. Your muscle memory isn’t as quick. Your knees are weaker. You looked a little out of breath on the climbing wall, so your stamina might not be as good as it used to be.”

  “Only time my knees are weak is when I’m around you.” He dragged his finger down the line of her jaw. “Same for that breathless feeling.” Then he curled his hand around the back of her neck and swept his thumb across the pulse pounding in her throat. “And, kitten, because of you, my stamina is way better than it’s ever been.”

  Note to self: You suck at trash-talking.

  But Knox? Holy fuck, the man could make her wet with just words.

  She had to refocus. “So it’ll be fun to see if your body can back up your ego.”

  Knox laughed. “Lead the way.”

  The obstacle course had two different levels. Easy and moderate. It also had a different scoring system for men and women, since the course was geared toward men.

  The instructor gave a basic rundown and indicated he’d be scoring them.

  Shiori was a little disappointed there wasn’t the crack of a starter’s pistol to get her going.

  The first obstacle was a series of tires—putting a foot through each hole. Easy enough.

  The next challenge was a warped balance beam four feet off the ground, which bowed in spots and wobbled as she crossed it. Again, the beam seemed easy, but she knew men had a harder time with it.

  In the third run, she had to dodge life-sized chunks of swinging foam that resembled boulders. They swung in random patterns. Shiori headed straight through the middle, leaning back to avoid one and ducking down to avoid another. The last boulder dropped straight down and narrowly missed her leg. But then she was free.

  Obstacle number four was the rope climb over an eight-foot wall.

  Don’t overthink it.

  She rushed toward it, grabbing on to the rope and planting her feet halfway up the wall. She had upper-body strength, but nothing like Knox’s. Gritting her teeth, she inched up the wall at a snail’s pace.

  The rope is your tool.

  She remembered seeing one of those Japanese game shows on TV, with wacky physical challenges, where a woman used the wall as a springboard and bounced her way to the top. Shiori tried that. Three bounces as she moved her hands up the rope. Three more bounces and she was over the wall. It took her only two bounces to scale down the other side of the wall.

  She bent at the waist and caught her breath as she noticed the next obstacle. Steel monkey bars, then a set of rings, then another set of monkey bars.

  One right after another.

  Yeah. This course was totally geared toward men.

  But she wasn’t giving up.

  She jumped up, grabbed the first bar with both hands and started to swing. Her arms weren’t long enough that she could skip more than one steel bar.

  By the time she reached the rings, her arms ached. But again, she built up a swinging momentum and was able to skip every other ring. The true test now would be making it to the end of the monkey bars.

  Her hands were sweaty, and her arms shook. She threw herself onto the first bar. That’s when she knew she couldn’t swing anymore. Muscle fatigue and damp hands were a bad combination.

  Come on. Back to basics. How did you do this when you were a kid and had zero upper-body strength?

  One bar at a time.

  She had to reach out with one hand, as if she were doing a pull-up, then bring her other hand beside it. Eight bars. The process was slow, but she made it.

  The last course loomed ahead. She’d have to crawl through a long steel tube and then leap across a water trap into a sandbox.

  Excitement hit her like a shot of adrenaline.

  She was small enough that she wouldn’t have to crawl through the tube on her belly. If she hunched her shoulders and crouched down, she could duckwalk through it. That could shave seconds off her time.

  And it worked amazingly well. High on her cleverness, she sprinted toward the water trap and launched herself over it, landing on her hands and knees in the sandbox.

  Done. She’d done it.

  Then Knox was there, lifting her to her feet, swinging her around in a circle, peppering her face with kisses, telling her how proud he was of her and that she deserved to win after her awesome display of athletic ingenuity.

  She loved how Knox got so swept up in everything. He never held anything back.

  After parking her on a bench with a bottle of water, he crouched in front of her. “You sure you’re all right? No shame in barfing. Most people do.”

  “I’m all right. Can you give me a few minutes to catch my breath before you run the course? Because I want to watch.”

  “Of course.”

  He kept staring at her. Finally she said, “I swear I’m not feeling sick.”

  “That’s not why I’m looking at you.”

  “Then why?”

  “You’ll think it’s stupid.”

  “Only if you don’t tell me.”

  His eyes roamed her face. “You scare me.”

  Not what she’d expected. “Why?”

  “I’ve wanted to try this place for three years, but no one would ever agree to come with me. Then you didn’t even hesitate when I su
ggested it. You’re everything I wanted in a woman—more, actually, because you’ve opened up part of me that I’d never acknowledged.” Knox looked at a spot over her shoulder. “So now you’re in my life, but I know it’s not permanent. And that sucks.”

  Shiori jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his chest. A thousand words bounced around in her brain, but she couldn’t find the right ones, so she said nothing.

  Knox ran his hands down her arms and stepped back. When she looked up at him, his smile was cocky, and no humor danced in his eyes. “See you at the finish line.” He turned and jogged away.

  How had that happened? They’d been having a great day. What brought on his abrupt shift in mood?

  This was a reminder why she played in a club situation. The expectations there were all short-term. Like Knox, she’d become cynical that she’d ever find not only what she wanted but what she needed.

  But brooding about it wouldn’t solve anything. Although she knew she’d be breaking this down piece by piece later.

  Shiori saw a flash of red and realized Knox had started the course. So she moved to a better vantage point.

  Oddly enough, the tires gave Knox trouble. His long legs were a disadvantage for this portion.

  Next he moved to the balance beam. And again he struggled, nearly falling off at the midway point. He righted himself and finished by using huge strides to get himself to the end of the beam.

  She studied his face. Such concentration. It was a little jarring to recognize he wore that same look when they were naked and he was trying to make her come.

  The swinging boulder obstacle proved no challenge for him at all. He dodged, ducked, and spun and ran to the rope climb.

  He didn’t need time to catch his breath. At his height, his first jump put him midway up the rope. Then he shinnied up the thing like a damn monkey. He stood on top of the wall and used the rope as a guide to slide to the ground.

  Son of a bitch. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She’d bounced down like she had on the other side.

  But when Knox faced the monkey bars, she wondered if he had rope burns on his palms.

  If he had them, it sure hadn’t affected him. With his long arms, he made it across the breadth of the steel structure, utilizing only the middle bar before reaching the end. He did the exact same maneuver with the rings. He took a second to breathe before he tackled the final set of monkey bars. Then he swung to the ground.

  Shiori moved along the outside of the course and saw Knox drop to all fours at the entrance to the steel tube. With those broad shoulders, it’d be a tight fit. From the moment his feet disappeared she counted one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, five-one-thousand. By the time she hit six, Knox scrambled out of the tunnel.

  Immediately he sprinted and soared over the water trap and nearly cleared the sand trap too.

  She raced over and threw herself at him. “I wish I would’ve taped that on my phone. It was picture perfect, baby!”

  He laughed and set her down. “Need to breathe. Give. Me. A. Sec.”

  “Oh, sure. Right.”

  When he bent over with his hands on his knees, she stuck close by, rubbing his back.

  Knox slowly straightened up and hauled her into his arms, although he warned softly, “Don’t do that.”

  “Don’t do what?”

  “Be so goddamn sweet and gentle with me, Shiori. It’ll just make it twice as hard.”

  Confused, her eyes searched his. “Make what twice as hard?”

  He rested his forehead to hers. “When you go back to Japan. I can lie to myself about the Domme-sub aspect of this, chalking it up as a sexual experiment. I can compartmentalize our fights at Black Arts as coworker disagreements. But this? Having fun, sexy banter and then your sweet, caring touches? That I can’t explain away because I like you too damn much. And I’ll miss you like fucking crazy when you’re gone. I’d wonder what I should’ve done to make you stay.”

  Floored by his confession, she had to take a few moments to force herself to breathe. How long had he felt that way? Shiori tilted her head back, needing to look into his eyes, but they were interrupted.

  “Holy cow, man. You annihilated the fastest course time!” Errol said with genuine awe.

  “Really?”

  “By, like, fifty seconds. Dude. You should totally try out for American Ninja Warrior. They have open auditions all over the country. You’d be a shoo-in.”

  “Thank you for the vote of confidence.”

  Shiori handed Knox a bottle of water.

  “Anyway, as the new course holder, you should have your picture on our wall of fame.”

  “That’s not necessary. We’re just here having a good time.”

  Errol’s lip lifted as he started his rebuke.

  Shiori put her hand on his arm. “He’s a very private man in a highly sensitive occupation. Putting his picture up would violate about twenty rules in his contract.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t you think if I could tape him in all his hot-bodied glory I would have?”

  “Uh. Yeah. Probably.”

  “But I didn’t. So see? I’m making a sacrifice for him too.”

  Errol dropped the cool act and stared at Knox as if he were Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man all rolled into one. “Sure, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble when you’re just blowing off some steam, man.”

  “No problem.”

  “After you get your stuff gathered up, you can exit out the side door.”

  They’d brought only one gym bag to share, and after switching out their shoes, Knox shouldered the bag and they headed out.

  Shiori snagged his hand and towed him to the front of the building.

  “Kitten, my truck is the other direction.”

  “I know. But I want a picture of my record-holding American Ninja Warrior in front of the building.”

  “Jesus. Seriously? Why?”

  “So we have a record of this.”

  “Shiori—”

  She shut him up with a kiss. Then, in a more commanding tone, she said, “Not a request. Go stand over there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When he positioned himself in front of the sign, wearing sunglasses, his sweaty shirt molded to his amazing chest, his athletic shorts showcasing his strong, muscular legs, she took a moment to feel the possession that this man was hers. She could touch, kiss, lick every part of him, anytime she wanted.

  But for how much longer?

  She had to lower her phone for a second as Knox’s words hit her in the gut. I’ll miss you like fucking crazy when you’re gone. I’d wonder what I should’ve done to make you stay.

  “Are we done?” he said loudly.

  “No, hang on. I had something in my eye.” She snapped two pictures and then said, “Smile in this one, Shihan.”

  His smile . . . God. She was beginning to think she’d do anything for that smile. She tucked her phone away and waited for him to come to her.