Lorelei James - Bound

Somehow Amery eased back from his enthralling touch. “Fat chance. So, where were you sitting while I was proving your point?”

“In the corner.”

“Watching my back?”

He gestured to the front of the bar. “I didn’t want to watch your back; I wanted to watch your face.” He plucked up her restless hand. “Since I won, I get to pick what we do tonight. Have any idea what that might be?”

Please say hours of hot, raunchy sex.

Ronin’s eyes narrowed. “Did you say something?”

“Uh. No.” Thank god she hadn’t said that out loud, but she half suspected he’d read her mind. “What are we doing?” she asked quickly. “I hope it involves food.”

“Isn’t it fortunate I planned to cook for you at my place?”

So maybe hot sex was on the menu for tonight. She smiled. “Sounds delicious.”

“Let’s go.”

Amery upended her drink and took his hand as he led her outside. No worries about driving since she’d walked to the bar. She’d even worn jeans in case Ronin had driven his motorcycle.

But out on the street he stopped beside a black Lexus SUV. He opened the passenger door. “You look disappointed.”

“I kind of like the bike.”

“Next time.”

Once they were tooling down the road, she said, “I don’t know where you live.”

“Same as you: where I work.”

She frowned. “You live in the dojo?”

“On the top floor. And also like you, I own the building.”

“What else is in the building?”

“Dojo offices and additional training areas take up the second and part of the third floor. I rent out the fourth floor to businesses that don’t have much walk-in traffic but needed office space.”

“How long have you owned the building?”

“Bought it ten years ago. Needed a ton of work. My priority was the dojo. Then my living space. It’s just in the last six years the middle floors were updated and ready to rent out.”

“So, do you have instructors and students just pop into your place to say howdy?”

Ronin shook his head. “It’s no secret I live on the top floor, but access is limited.” He circled the area twice. “The downside to this area is the lack of parking.”

“Sucks when you have to haul groceries, doesn’t it?”

“That’s why I don’t have a membership at Costco.”

He had a better sense of humor than Amery had credited him for. She headed for the front entrance, but he snagged her hand and led her to the alley. “Back door.”

“Afraid you’ll get waylaid and need to show a technique or ten to some poor struggling white belt?” she teased.

“No.” They stopped in front of a rusty steel door. He unlocked a small metal box, which housed a keypad, punched in a code, and the locks popped.

“Fancy.”

“Safe,” he corrected.

Amery could hear the sounds of the dojo as they cut down a narrow hallway. They stopped at another door, which also required a key card for the code box. Through that door was an elevator bay with two elevators. They rode in silence to the fifth floor and got off.

She followed him down a short carpeted hallway and he stopped in front of a set of double doors. Another swipe of the key card, another code.

“I’m starting to feel like I’m in a spy movie.”

Ronin held the door open for her. “Almost there.”

Before her was another elevator. She faced him, her mouth open. “You have a private elevator to your apartment?”

“Keeps the riffraff out.”

She laughed.

“It’s no different than standard high-rises. The top floor always has a separate elevator.”

With all the security measures, how would she get out if she had to? Her heart raced at the sudden thought and she studied the pattern in the fake-wood paneling as Ronin messed with another keypad.

The elevator started to go up.

He didn’t speak until the door opened. “After you.”

Amery stepped onto a tiled entryway and stopped.

Then Ronin was in her face. “What’s wrong?”

“This . . . private elevator, super-secret security stuff. What if there’s a fire and I can’t get out because I don’t have the key card or the codes? Or what if I just want to leave?”

His rapt gaze remained on hers. “If you want to leave, I’ll take you home right now. No questions asked.”

That mollified her some.

“This is a no-pressure situation, Amery. I won’t drag you into my bedroom and tie you to my bed.” He smiled devilishly. “Well, not at first.”

Her quick laugh held a trace of nerves.

“We’ll have dinner, conversation, see if there’s something between us worth pursuing.”

“And if there isn’t?”

The look on his face said he didn’t believe that was a possibility. “Do you want to be here?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Ronin crowded her against the wall and curled his hands around her face. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment you threw your pants at me.”

Amery couldn’t think of a witty retort; she couldn’t think period. Then he teased her mouth with his. A glide of his lips, followed by an exchange of heated breath. She trembled with heart-pounding, body-tingling anticipation.

His tongue lightly swept across the seam of her lips and she automatically opened her mouth wider. Wanting more.

Ronin slowly licked his way inside. First a taste. Another lick. A soft suck. His thumbs feathered across her cheeks as he held her face. Then he angled her head and consumed her mouth in a blistering kiss.

Oh god. Could the man kiss. No holds barred, he poured passion and skill and need into the kiss until Amery returned his fire with her own. She closed her eyes and her fingers curled into his chest, holding on to him even as she gave him control.

He took it as if it were his due.

By the time he ended the kiss, her body vibrated. Her head was muzzy and her lips buzzed.

“Still want to go?” he murmured.

“No.”

“You sure?” he asked, his lips trilling down her throat.

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“I’m glad. Do you want a tour? Or are you starved?”

“A tour would be good.”

Ronin placed one last, lingering kiss on her lips and took her hand. He led her through a curved archway. “This is the living room. Feel free to look around while I see to dinner.”

Maybe austere was a Japanese thing. Or maybe his décor choice reflected his bachelor status. The furnishings weren’t scaled to the size of the room. Just two simple couches, long and low-backed, covered in plain neutral brown fabric. Two tan chairs sat opposite each other in front of a fireplace. A coffee table, end tables, a leather bench, and several floor lamps finished the space.

He hadn’t scattered personal items on the horizontal surfaces. No family pictures. No accolades from his jujitsu career.

Art hung here and there. One picture contained a graphic scene—a fat Japanese man opened his robe, exposing his exaggerated genitalia to a disheveled geisha cowering on the ground. Two more similar in theme hung next to it. One with a long-haired samurai wielding a sword at a snarling tiger standing in front of massacred bodies. The last picture featured a crouching Japanese man, naked, his oversized genitalia resting on the ground. In front of him was a half-clothed woman, tied to a post in some fancy rope configuration, and the man held her foot, licking the sole with an enlarged tongue.

From behind her, Ronin said, “Those are shunga prints.”

“Interesting decorating choice.”

“They’re heavy with symbolism, not at all what they appear to be on the surface.”

Ironic that description could also be applied to him?

They skirted a wall that divided the living spaces but didn’t reach the ceiling or the other two walls and left a large gap by the floor. Gave the illusion of a floating wall, which was cool.