“I know what style and components I’ll use, but I’m still working out specifics.” Specifically why Amery insisted she’d wear a traditional kimono or a bodysuit and not be bound naked.
You let your student dictate the rules to the master, pu**ycat?
He shook his head, trying to exorcise Naomi’s phantom voice. The thought of anyone but him seeing Amery’s bound beauty, the glow of her skin, the serenity on her face when she was at his mercy, the constriction of her ni**les and ropes framing the secret heart of her, didn’t bring him a sense of pride but a fierceness to protect it. He’d never felt that way. And he sure as f**k didn’t know what to do about it.
So the irony was, now that Amery had initiated a demo night at the club, he was the one feeling unsure about going forward with it. But there was no way to stop it.
“Ronin?” Knox said behind him.
He turned. “Sorry. Lost in thought. What did you say?”
“Naomi has always f**ked you up. I wanted to throw a freakin’ party when you said you were done with that psychotic bitch. I never trusted her. I hated the way she’d burrowed herself into your life, with her controlling, needy bullshit.”
Ronin studied Knox.
“What?”
“Is there a reason you didn’t mention any of this to me when I was with her?”
Knox scrubbed his hand over his face. “Truth? You’d just hired me. I needed the job—hell, it was my dream job—and at that time we weren’t friends. You were too f**king wrapped up in her to have any friends. And what would you have done if I’d said the two of you were in a dysfunctional relationship and the only way it’d end was badly? You would’ve canned my ass. After you found out how your grandfather had manipulated you, I was the only guy left standing in the dojo. It was only after you handed Naomi her walking papers that you and I established a friendship outside of boss and employee. Deacon gives me shit for saying stuff like this, but you guys are my brothers. I don’t hesitate to speak my mind now. But we both know if I would’ve confronted you about the f**ked-up situation between you and Naomi years ago, I wouldn’t be here now.”
Ronin exhaled slowly. Why had he geared up to level Knox with a verbal smackdown? Because he hated to admit that Knox was right? He needed Knox in his life, not only as his right-hand man in business, but without Knox’s friendship he’d be on a different path—a destructive path. “You’re right. That pisses me off.”
Knox smiled. “I know.”
“So to answer your original question, I’ve been working on a suspension demonstration. More performance-art type of shibari, rather than straight kinbaku, which you know I f**king hate, but that’s what best fits this situation.”
Shiori walked in without knocking. Her face was pale, her eyes glazed.
Ronin’s stomach dropped. “What?”
“Amery. She’s . . .”
Immediately he was in Shiori’s face. “What about her?”
“She was attacked a little while ago.”
He gaped at her, mouth open and body frozen.
“Tell us what happened,” Knox said.
“She was meeting a new client. Before she got to the elevator in the parking garage, she was attacked.”
Rage and fear roared in his head.
“There were two guys, so she couldn’t fight them off. They roughed her up and left her.” Shiori put her hand on Ronin’s chest. “She called me because evidently Molly was attacked a few months ago and she didn’t want to bring back those bad memories for her.”
Even beat-to-shit Amery was thinking of others.
Why didn’t she think of you?
“Ronin, take a breath, so I can tell you the rest.”
He forced his lungs to work, and some of the dizzying rage dissipated.
“Amery didn’t call you because she recognized her attackers.”
“Who?”
“The guy who was with Naomi the other night. And another guy who’d been lingering around our table.”
“Where is Amery now? Did you take her to the hospital?”
“No. She’s banged up but swore she didn’t need medical treatment. I took her to the penthouse.”
Ronin ran out the door and down the hallway.
Behind him he heard Shiori yell, “Wait—” and then Knox saying, “Let him go.”
He forced himself to breathe steadily instead of beating the f**k out of the too-slow elevator.
When he finally reached the penthouse level, he took a moment to try to find his calm center. If only for a little while, if only for her.
Amery wasn’t in the living room or kitchen or by the bar. He saw the door to his room was ajar and completely dark. The scent of her shampoo lingered in a humid cloud throughout the space as he moved to the dresser and flipped on the lamp. Then he crawled right up beside her. “Amery?”
She’d pulled the covers over her head, but her response was clear. “Go away. I’m fine. I just need to sleep.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Let me see.”
“No.”
“Not doing this with you.” Heart pounding, he gently peeled the comforter back. She was curled into a ball, her cheek pressed into the pillow and her hair obscuring her face. “Look at me.”
She shook her head and tried to curl deeper into herself.
Ronin slid off the mattress and headed for the door. He flipped the overhead lights on and climbed up next to her again. “Let me see what they did to you.”
“I’m afraid to show you.”
He jerked back as if she’d taken a swing at him. “Show me anyway.”
When Amery didn’t move, he leaned over her and started brushing the hair away from her face. First thing he noticed was the bruise on her left cheekbone. His stomach churned at seeing that dark spot as well as the damp track of her tears. “Please, baby. This is killing me. Look at me.”
She slowly faced him. Her hair still concealed her face.
Please let it be stuck there by tears and not blood. Her tears weren’t easy to handle, but he could do it. But Amery’s blood? Might as well shoot him with a tranq gun. He wouldn’t handle that. At all.
Ronin lifted her hair, small sections at a time until she made an annoyed sound and sat up.
He knew she was staring at him, but he couldn’t look away from the marks marring her beautiful face. The bruises already turning her pale skin a mottled black from the bridge of her nose to the outer edge of her eye. Her upper lip was puffy. Same with her lower lip. The right side of her jaw held a shadowed shape of a thumb. On the opposite side, in a line down her neck, were three big dots. Indicating she’d been grabbed by the jaw and the guy had squeezed until he’d left marks.