“Okay.” He’d shaken her brain into malfunctioning, and apparently that was all she could say now.

He touched his lips to hers, and pleasure jolted to her heart, down her arms, down her legs. Tilting his head, he kissed her deeper. Once. Twice. Again. Until she sighed and leaned into him, tangled her fingers in his cool hair. He claimed her mouth with his tongue in a way that was new and familiar at once. She kissed him back with everything in her, trying to tell him all the things she wasn’t articulate enough to say.

“God, Stella,” he rasped against her lips, his dark eyes dazed and heavy-lidded. “You learned that fast.”

Before she could respond, he took her mouth again. She forgot about the time, forgot about work, even forgot about her anxiety. His large body rubbed against hers, and she arched into him, reveling in his closeness.

Her phone buzzed with her mother’s ring tone.

Michael tore away at once, flushed and breathing heavily. He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth as he stared deep into her eyes, looking like he was two seconds away from kissing her again.

“I should get that.” She slipped inside, sat on the edge of the bed, and pressed the talk button on her phone with a shaky thumb. “Hello?”

“Stella dear, your father’s—oh, hold on a second.” Her father’s deep voice rumbled on the other end, and Stella held the phone away from her ear as her parents discussed golf and lunch plans.

Michael approached her with a fluid-limbed gait. “I need to go, but we’re on for next Friday.”

“Next Friday,” she confirmed with a nod.

Instead of leaving immediately as she expected, he leaned down and brushed a fleeting kiss to her mouth. “Good-bye, Stella.”

She watched his departure in a dazed state. They were meeting again. In a week.

“Who was that?” Even with the phone several inches from her ear, Stella could hear her mother’s surprise.

“That was . . . Michael.” A breathless kind of nervousness filled her. She might like it that her mother had discovered her male visitor.

A brief silence ensued, followed by, “Stella dear, did you spend the night with a man?”

“It’s not what you think. We didn’t do anything. Other than kissing.” The best kissing of Stella’s life.

“Well, why ever not?”

Stella’s mouth worked without issuing words.

“You’re a mature adult, and you make good choices. Now, tell me all about this Michael.”

Chapter 6

Destroy. Defeat. Deceive.

Michael scanned his partner’s black-clad form for weaknesses he could exploit. Right now, during the heat of the match, was the only time he gave free rein to the base, selfish instincts he battled daily. And it felt so fucking good.

No matter how hard he fought against it, at his core, he was just like his dad. The badness had been passed down in his blood.

He shoved and went for a head shot. When his partner’s sword rose to block the strike, Michael pushed for that extra burst of speed and arched his weapon down. The tip of his sword cracked against his partner’s side.

Clean point. Match over.

Everyone bowed and set their swords on the blue matted floor before kneeling. Michael hated this part of class, not because it meant practice was ending, but because it was time to remove his armor and return to his normal self.

This was the beauty of apparel. A suit transformed you into a certain kind of person. A T-shirt, a different kind of person. Black nightmare armor that hid your face behind an ominous metal cage, yet a different kind of person. The gear weighed thirty pounds, but he always felt lighter when he wore it.

As he shed layers, cold air touched his skin, and reality crept back into his head. Heavy thoughts stacked one upon the other like bricks, returning him to his regular burdened state. Responsibilities and obligations. Bills. Family. His day job. His night job.

After class officially ended, he put his gear in its place on the shelf along the back wall. Space was tight as fuck with five guys in the cramped changing room, and he didn’t feel like waiting around, so he slipped his uniform off in the hallway. Nothing half the women in California hadn’t already seen.

Two high school girls giggled and hurried into the women’s room, and he rolled his eyes as he yanked a pair of jeans over his boxer briefs. Michael Larsen: now serving half the women in California plus two.

“We’re probably going to have a bunch of new girl members next week now,” said a voice Michael recognized as belonging to Quan, Michael’s cousin and sparring partner.

“I’ll let you teach them their strikes,” Michael said as he retrieved a wrinkled T-shirt from his duffel bag and straightened.

“They might be disappointed.”

“Whatever.” He yanked his shirt on, trying and failing to ignore their contrasting reflections in the full-length mirror hanging on the wall.

Lots of girls went for Quan. With his buzzed head and the dense tattoos covering his arms and neck, he rocked that badass Asian drug lord image. You wouldn’t guess he was paying his way through business school while helping his parents at their restaurant. Michael, on the other hand, was a pretty boy.

It wasn’t a bad problem to have—it was paying the bills, after all—but people’s responses got boring. Well, except for a certain economist someone’s response. Stella’s attraction to him had been obvious, but she hadn’t looked at him like he was an expensive cut of meat. She’d looked at him like she saw no one else. He couldn’t forget the way she’d kissed him once he’d earned her trust, the way she’d melted and—

When Michael caught the direction of his thoughts, he mentally punched himself in the dick. She was his client, and she had issues. It was fucked up to think of their sessions like this.

“If we have new students, I’ll teach them. I don’t mind,” Khai, Quan’s younger brother, offered. He still wore his uniform and practiced running strikes in front of the mirror, his pace fast but steady, like a machine.

Quan rolled his eyes. “He never minds. Even when they throw themselves at him. You should have seen the last one. She asked him out to dinner, and he said, ‘No, thanks, I already ate.’ ‘Dessert then?’ ‘No, I don’t eat dessert after class.’ ‘Coffee?’ ‘That will keep me up, and I have work tomorrow.’”

Michael couldn’t help smiling at that. Khai reminded him a little of Stella.

As Quan shoved both of their weapons into a nearby storage box, he said, “Nice match. Bad day?”

Michael shrugged. “Just the same.” He should be grateful. He was grateful. Everything would be fine if he could stop wanting all the things he’d given up. He didn’t regret exchanging his old life for this one—he’d do it again—but at the same time, this wanting wouldn’t stop. If anything, it was getting worse. Because he was a selfish bastard. Like his dad.

“How’s your mom doing?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “Good, I guess. She says she likes her new meds.”

“That’s good, man.” Quan squeezed his shoulder. “You should celebrate. Come out with me on Friday. There’s this new club in SF called 212 Fahrenheit.”

That actually sounded nice, and a rush of excitement burned over him. He hadn’t been out without a client in forever.

The reminder of clients had him exhaling a heavy breath. “Can’t. I have something.”

“What?” Quan’s eyes turned assessing. “Or do you mean who? You’re always busy Fridays. Do you have a secret girlfriend you’re scared of introducing to everyone?”

He snorted inwardly at the idea of taking a client to meet his family. Never going to happen. “Nah, no girlfriend. You?”

Quan laughed. “You know my mom. Do you think I’d subject a girl to that?”

Grinning, Michael picked up his bag and headed for the studio’s front door, passing Khai, who hadn’t stopped with his practice or slowed down this entire time. “Look on the bright side. If a girl meets your mom and doesn’t run, you’ll know you found a keeper.”

As Quan followed him, he said, “No, then I’ll have two scary-ass women in my life instead of one.”