Chaz and Emmylou both slunk out.

Immediately Molly gave Amery a hug. “I’m sorry you had to deal with that. I overheard them bitching about you spending all your time with Ronin and I thought that’s all they were going to talk about with you. If I’d known what they really had planned . . .”

“Molly. It’s okay. Thank you for jumping in.”

“No, thank you for teaching by example. I’ve learned so much from you—it’s important to stand up for myself and be there for my friends.”

“You are a good friend.” Amery squeezed her one last time and closed herself in her office.

The shitty start to her morning continued throughout the day. She lost another existing client to the company’s in-house restructuring, and a potential client went to another agency. She spent more time on the phone than working, but at the end of the day, she couldn’t remain in her office a minute longer. After changing into workout clothes, she climbed into her car and headed toward Black Arts.

Maybe beating the shit out of a punching bag would cleanse her mind, body, and spirit.

CHAPTER TWENTY

YONDAN Deacon McCloud was a mean son of a bitch.

Amery fantasized about throwing him on his ass. Kicking him in the shins. Slamming her hands into his ears with her newly learned thunderclap technique. Sinking her teeth into his tattooed biceps.

The man claimed that missing a self-defense class meant he needed to push her harder. He showed her new moves and drilled her over and over until she was gasping for breath. Then he’d start in again.

He made Sensei Black look like a kindergarten teacher.

Not that she’d share that insight with the dojo’s Grand Pooh-Bah.

She used a hand towel to mop her face.

“Come on, flavor of the month. Quit stalling. We’re not done.”

“You’re killing me.”

He grinned.

Holy shit. That was the first time she’d ever seen Deacon smile. It kicked his attractiveness up a notch or ten, but it also made him look ten times scarier. Bald, tattooed, excessively muscled, and overly intense men hadn’t appealed to her before, mostly because she’d never been around any. She definitely saw the appeal now.

“So, you gearing up to kiss me or what? ’Cause that sure ain’t a defensive fighting stance, cream puff.”

“Cream puff? I’ll show you cream puff.” Sick of Deacon’s smarmy comments about being Ronin’s flavor of the month and her lack of defensive know-how, Amery twisted the towel, intending to snap him with it. But he snagged the end and did some fast maneuver that wrapped the towel around her own wrist. Then he twisted it until her arm was behind her back and she dropped to her knees. She gasped, “Uncle.”

He laughed—a little maniacally. “Sucks when your own weapon is used against you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

Deacon released her. “Get up and let’s go again.”

Amery muttered, “Sadistic bastard,” as she rolled to her feet.

“I’m not a bastard—my parents were married when my ma birthed me. But sadistic? Yeah, I’ll cop to that one.” He switched his stance. “Block me.”

Before Amery gathered her wits, Deacon was in her face, sweeping her legs out from under her. She hit the mat butt first. Rather than lie there humiliated, she latched on to his pant leg and tugged.

Deacon turned his upper body, which allowed her to kick him in the back of the knee. He immediately went down to one knee. He raised a surprised brow. “Good work. Self-defense is eighty percent improvisation in the moment.”

“What’s the other twenty percent?”

“Ten percent is using learned skills and the last piece of that pie chart is utilizing fear. Without fear we’d have no need for self-defense.”

“Gee, Yondan, you almost sounded like Sensei with that bit of philosophy,” she teased.

“I can only hope his influence is rubbing off on me. Now show me strikes.”

“Which ones?”

“All of them.”

By the time she finished, the class had run thirty minutes over and she dripped sweat.

Yondan looked as fresh as a daisy. “I’ll let Sandan Zach know you’re caught up with your class.”

“Thank you.”

“You can find your way out of the maze?”

Amery nodded.

He offered her a slight bow and exited the room.

She’d intended to go straight to the locker room and change, but she took a wrong turn and ended up in an area she’d never been in before. She stopped in front of a five-foot-wide window that looked into a training room. Given the dark tint of the glass, she doubted the people inside the room could see out.

Her gaze was immediately drawn to Ronin at the front of the classroom.

With his hair pulled back, his shrewd eyes assessing his students, his don’t-fuck-with-me posture—he was a magnificent sight to behold.

He wore black gi pants and a red gi top. Knotted at his waist was his black belt with eight red stripes embroidered across the width and his master level in Japanese below it to the tip of his belt. The upper patch on the left side of his chest read SENSEI BLACK. Below that was the American flag patch, a smaller Japanese flag below that, and four small patches she couldn’t read. He had more patches on the sleeves of his gi top—on both sides—and on the right side of his chest was the new Black Arts logo she’d designed.

She grinned. Hadn’t taken much time for the design to be integrated.