“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.”
He closed his eyes.
“And fuck the negative train of thought that women would only love you because you’re a billion-dollar baby.” She kissed his ear. “Baby, I fell in love with you before I knew you had billions.”
Shocked, Ronin slowly turned around on the barstool. “What did you say?”
“I said I love you. And you were right; I’ve been holding back on telling you. I don’t know why. I fell in love with you months ago. That night I gave you the picture of me bound? I’d planned to confess all, but I chickened out. I believed I had plenty of time, and I wanted the moment to be perfect.”
“Then, the next day, you walked out after you discovered—”
She put her fingers over his lips. “That you’d withheld so much from me that I felt like I didn’t even know the man I’d fallen in love with.”
“So you fell out of love with me?”
“No. But I did hold back from telling you all this time. Not out of spite, but out of fear.” Amery pressed her lips to his in a lingering kiss. “Because loving you is a scary thing, Ronin Black.”
“Amery. I’m . . .” Speechless. Instead of trying to find the words to fit the moment, he fit his mouth to hers, pouring everything in his heart and soul into the kiss.
When they finally ended the lip-lock, Amery said, “Wow.”
He nuzzled her neck. “Say it again.”
“Wow.”
He smacked her ass. “Say it again.”
“I love you.”