He withdrew and rammed into her with long, deep strokes, his mouth at her ear. “I want to feel your nails digging into my back and my ass. I want to feel your teeth on my skin. I want to wear your marks.”

She just about came right then.

As he pounded into her with enough force they slid across the floor, Amery sucked a love bruise on his pectoral. She dragged her nails down his back when his tongue flicked across the sweet spot in the curve of her shoulder. She arched and ground against him, giving herself over to this primal mating. This physical testament that they were alive.

Ronin’s hands pushed her knees until the outside of her thighs pressed into the floor. That change forced his pubic bone to keep continual contact with her clit and she gasped.

“Hands on me,” he demanded.

With his mouth sucking on her nipple, it only took six short strokes and she came so hard white spots obscured her vision. Ronin’s orgasm started on the tail end of hers and she dug her nails into the back of his neck, his long moan sweet to her ears since the man usually came in near silence.

They stayed slumped together in a sweaty pile, breathing hard, until the chill from the floor caused her to shiver.

Ronin pushed up and looked into her face. “You blow my mind every f**king time.”

“And just think . . . you didn’t even have to break out the ropes for it to be that hot between us.”

“Smart.” Kiss. “Ass.” Kiss.

She reached up and touched his face. Sometimes she couldn’t believe this gorgeous, complicated, kinky man was in her life.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked softly.

Rather than tell him again how hot, sexy, and amazing he was, she said, “Thank you for your quick thinking and getting us out of a bad situation tonight.”

“My pleasure.” He kissed her with such sweetness tears stung her eyes. “Let’s get cleaned up and ready for bed.”

“That means I’m staying over?”

“Be a little hard for you to leave after I tie you to my headboard.”

She laughed, but come to find out . . . he hadn’t been joking.

• • •

AMERY showed up for work thirty minutes late on Wednesday morning. She hadn’t tried to sneak in, but after seeing her friends circled around Molly’s desk, loaded for bear, she wondered if she should’ve made her appearance after lunch and claimed a new client meeting had kept her away from the office.

“Well, well, look what the cat dragged in,” Chaz said with no hint of a smile.

She wasn’t exactly surprised by the ambush since things had been tense for the past couple of weeks. Chaz defined surly, even in casual conversation. And after Emmylou returned from her on-site jobs, she grumbled and slammed her office door. Amery had tried talking to each of them, in person and via text, but neither had responded, so she figured the issue was between them and they hadn’t wanted to drag her into it.

But it appeared the issue was about her—and they’d joined forces.

“What’s going on? Did I miss a memo for an interoffice meeting?”

“Call it what you want, but we need to talk to you.”

“Who’s we?” Amery asked.

A blushing Molly put her hands up in defense. “I want no part of this.”

“Why don’t you take a thirty-minute break at Lisabet’s Patisserie?”

“Sure. Would you like me to bring you anything?”

She shook her head. No one spoke until Molly had left and Amery had settled in with a cup of coffee. “So, besties, why does this feel like an intervention?”

Chaz lifted an eyebrow. “Is there something bad and wrong you’ve been doing that requires one?”

“Besides Ronin Black?” Emmylou added snarkily.

What the hell? “Whoa. This is about Ronin?”

“Of course it is, because you’re all about him lately, aren’t you?”

She bristled. “What about him?”

Emmylou and Chaz stared at her in silence.

“So you decided to jump me about the man I’m involved with but you aren’t telling me why?”

“You know why.”

Amery shoved down the worry that her supposed friends had figured out what she and Ronin had been up to behind closed doors. He was always so careful not to leave excessive marks when he bound her. The rarely seen devil on her shoulder reminded her that what she and Ronin did in the bedroom was no one’s business. “No, I really don’t.”

“Don’t you see that you’ve immersed yourself so much in this relationship with him that you’re losing yourself? We rarely see you anymore after work hours because Ronin monopolizes all your time and you let him,” Chaz said.

She blew across her coffee before taking a sip. “Monopolizes,” she repeated. “Really? If I recall correctly I asked you to lunch last week, which you declined. I also asked if you wanted to have a drink with me, which you also declined. And the reason you declined is that hot little Latin piece of ass you’re hiding from Andre, remember? The week before that you couldn’t be bothered to answer a single text from me. That is somehow my fault? Bull. Shit.”

“See? This is why we’re worried about you. You snap at the drop of a hat and if anyone raises any questions about Ronin, you get defensive. And I’ll be frank—I’m worried that the only reason he’s teaching you how to fight is so you can be even more like him.”