Ricco moved around the bag with the fluid grace of a fighter. She couldn’t help but admire him. He was a gorgeous man, a perfect physical specimen if she was going to be clinical. She much preferred to be clinical over the surprising well of emotion he invoked in her.

“You shouldn’t be in here right now,” he said.

He didn’t turn around or even glance her way. She was behind him, their shadows hadn’t touched, yet still, he was aware of her. That was good, because she was acutely aware of him.

“You have to stop.” He was hurting himself. She knew why. She’d used physical exercise to try to stop the pain and the chaos in her head when Osamu had driven her to want to hurt something or someone – usually herself. Just as he was doing.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he repeated. “Give me another hour or so.”

“There has to be a better way. Hurting yourself isn’t the answer, Ricco.” She kept her voice very low, just like his. Her tone was sultry; his was commanding and it vibrated right through her.

He stopped hitting the bag and glanced over his shoulder, his eyes dark and enigmatic. She shivered at the mixture of pain and rage she saw there.

“I have two ways to rid myself of this: working the bag and Shibari. This seemed safer.”

She stood her ground, although it took more courage than riding the shadows ever had. “I’m here to be your rope model.”

He shook his head. “It isn’t safe when I’m like this. I could hurt you.”

“No, you couldn’t.” If there was one thing she was certain of, it was that Ricco Ferraro would never hurt her. She was shocked at how certain she was of that fact. Clearly, when their shadows touched, it revealed far more of him than she understood until that moment. She could spend a lifetime getting to know another man and she wouldn’t know him as well as she did Ricco. “You would never harm me. I very much would like to do more rope art with you, that is if you want it, too.”

The drumming of her heart was loud in the ensuing silence. She had no idea if she was stepping over some invisible line with him. She didn’t know enough about relationships of any kind, let alone the strange one she found herself in now. She only knew that she had to stop him and the only way to do it was to give herself to him.

“I was late, Mariko. You understand if I had gotten there on time, I might have stopped the massacre. I got lost.”

“I hesitated coming out of the closet after Nao pulled Ryuu out. I was so terrified, I hesitated.”

He swore in Italian. One of the first things all riders had to learn was multiple languages, and she winced at the extremely foul expletives. He finally switched back to English. “You were three fucking years old.”

“You were only fourteen,” she countered. “You probably would have been killed had you gotten there earlier, and then I would be dead and so would Ryuu. You gave me back my family. Osamu had convinced me I was left on the street. Unwanted. A female devil child bringing bad luck to anyone I encountered. She told me my mother was a whore and that I had gotten into a car, taken it out of gear and run over Ryuu. I know now that isn’t the truth. I wasn’t the one to hurt him.”

He erupted into another long litany of very angry foul language while he jerked the thin leather gloves from his hands. “I will be paying Osamu Saito a visit. The world of riders will know exactly what she did as well as the crimes her sons committed. I can’t believe she made up such an ugly story. She had to have done it to separate you and your brother.”

She’d never had a champion, someone to take her back. She didn’t know how to feel without falling apart. She was offering him her body as a canvas, and that meant his rope, an extension of him, would wrap her up. Instead of feeling frightened, she had felt safe in his ropes. Now she knew why. The shadows connecting her to him had allowed her to see him for what he was – a man to be counted on. For whatever reasons, she’d fallen under his protection, and he took that seriously – every bit as seriously as when he was fourteen years old. Maybe more so.

“What would you like me to wear, Ricco?” she murmured softly, hoping to ease the anger in him.

He went still. “Are you certain? I don’t want to frighten you. Having you for a rope model is extremely important to me. My sister says I’m very scary at times.”

“Your sister is right,” she admitted, “but you don’t scare me.”

He raised an eyebrow.

She couldn’t help but smile. “You intimidate me, which isn’t the same thing, and only because I’m out of my element.”

Immediately she saw tension drain from his face. He still looked – intimidating – but she knew he would always be that to her. Just a little. Just enough to make it interesting. Still, he’d relaxed. She’d managed to tame the demons that drove him, and that made her feel very, very powerful. Once again, she had his complete focus. Not the past. Not the problems in the present. Just Mariko.

“You aren’t out of your element,” he corrected. “I like what you have on. Are you comfortable in what you’re wearing?”

She’d chosen the red lace because the color made her feel sexy. The silk kimono with the cherry blossoms across it made her feel at home and exquisitely beautiful. She nodded.

He held out a hand to her. She didn’t hesitate to put hers in his. His fingers closed around hers. Hard. Warm. He led her from the training hall toward the studio. Already her breath was coming too fast, but it was from excitement, not fear.

“Will you be uncomfortable if I remove the kimono?”

Could his voice be any gentler? Still, it held that soft, low male note that set her blood on fire. How did he do that?

“I couldn’t do this with anyone else.” She had to tell him that. Making herself so vulnerable was a gift to him. It took courage. More, she feared she was giving him more than her body as a canvas. Somehow, each time he touched her, spoke to her, or their shadows connected, the threads binding them together became stronger than the ropes he tied her with.

“Mariko. I need to know if you’ll be comfortable without the kimono. I can bind you either way, but my preference would be without. The rope will leave marks. Not bruises, just marks, but they’ll fade quickly.”

“I’m fine with that.” Who was going to see them? No one. She had no one. She answered to no one. Here, she had a freedom she’d never had before. She felt safe to explore who she was and who she wanted to be as a woman. For just a short while, she was Ricco Ferraro’s woman. She was going to live every single second of that time to the absolute fullest.

He traced the nape of her neck beneath the fall of her hair, just ran his finger down it while they walked together. She felt his touch all the way through her body, as if he had an electric coil that shimmered through her veins and arced bright and hot through her bloodstream. He made her feel beautiful, whether she was or not. He obviously thought she was. He stroked her so gently, yet the power of their connection made her feel as if he not only saw through her, but could reach through her skin and touch her soul.