Blake brings his coffee and crosses to the stairs. “When you’re done,” he says, “come down.”

My gaze locks on his and he gives me that cocky almost-smile as he disappears down the stairs.

His bedroom’s down there.

I can’t stop my eyes from flicking at the stairs every few seconds while I finish cleaning. Once I have the dishes in the dishwasher, I follow him downstairs and find him in the middle of Kankû-dai. I watch, mesmerized, as he finishes.

“You ready to try again?” he asks after his final bow.

“Considering I really want to punch something, sure. Why the hell not.”

He arches an eyebrow. “I think we should stick with kata until your shoulder’s better.”

“My shoulder’s fine.” I give him my best smirk. “Just admit it. You’re scared of me.”

His face goes all serious and his eyes darken. “Everything about you scares the hell out of me.”

We just stand here staring at each other for the better part of forever, and I feel my breathing get rough and my insides churn with the need to finish what we started the other night.

Finally, he lowers his lashes. “So . . . Kankû-dai, or Kankû-shô?”

“I want to spar.”

His eyes flash back to mine. “You’re sure your shoulder is ready?”

I step closer. “I’m ready.”

He gives me a look. “Your wish, my command.”

I take a deep cleansing breath, then bow.

He bows then starts to circle slowly to his left. I follow his movements, but I can tell he’s waiting for me to make the first move.

“Don’t you dare go easy on me,” I warn, “because I’ll beat your ass at your best.”

He tips his head and a smile ticks one corner of his mouth. “Be careful what you wish for.”

I drop to a crouch and swing out with my leg, but Blake deflects my kick easily.

“I’m rusty,” I mutter under my breath.

He counters with a punch to my sternum, but I deflect it and spin, connecting with a kick to his knee.

We trade a few punches, then I lunge, but he twists out of my grasp. We circle a few more times, exchanging blows, which we both deflect. I go low for his legs again, and this time I get enough of his knee to take him down. But before I can get ahold of his leg to pin him, he’s rolled over his shoulder and is on his feet again.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he taunts.

“Be careful what you wish for,” I say, singsonging his words back at him.

He tips his head, his eyes sizing me up, looking for my weakness. He seems to zero in on my shoulder, taking a few jabs that I’m forced to deflect with my right arm, but then he takes me by surprise when he swings out with his leg, buckling my knee and dropping me to the floor.

I roll backward over my shoulder and spring to my feet, unleashing a kick that connects with his sternum and rocks him back on his heels. He stumbles against the pool table, and I’m on him in a heartbeat. But before I can get a grasp on him, he hooks an elbow under my leg, lifting me completely off the ground. He spins me and pins my back to the green felt.

He’s breathing hard as he hovers over me, his body wedged between my spread legs and his hands planted on either side of my shoulders, and I see the struggle behind his eyes. Beads of sweat trickle along his neck, disappearing under the brushed cotton of his T-shirt.

I lay here, frozen like the rabbit in the headlights, waiting for him to decide. He continues to hover over me for what feels like forever, his hot breath and the ravenous look in his eye turning my insides into a quivering mass.

But then something in his eyes changes. The fire is still there, but a shadow of resignation creeps over them and his jaw tightens with his growing resolve. He pushes off the pool table and slowly backs away, his hands in the air as if surrendering . . . maybe to his better judgment. Certainly not to me.

When I can move, I sit up and straighten my tank top.

He leans against the back of the sofa, catching his breath, and rubs a hand down his face. But then his eyes lift to mine. “What did the note say?”

“What?” I ask, wishing my thoughts were as easy to straighten out as my clothes.

“The wedding invitation . . . there was a note.”

“Oh.” I take a breath, trying to focus. “Lexie . . . my friend . . . she wants me there . . . at her wedding. She says she’s sorry for how things played out with Trent.”

“Is that what this was about?” he asks, gesturing to the pool table, and it takes me a second to get my head around what he means.

“God, no!” I say when I realize. “I am so over Trent.”

“You’re sure?” he asks, his gaze caught somewhere between fire and ice.

I lean my hands on the edge of the table near my knees. “The thing with Trent is, there’s not really much to get over. It’s not like we were ever all that serious, you know?”

He bites his lower lip, and it makes me want to bite it too. “Whether he was serious or not, you were. You waited a long time for him.”

“But it’s not like we ever slept together or anything,” I say with a shrug, lowering my lashes.

“I thought you said you were together for eight months.”

I hear the surprise in his voice, and I wish I hadn’t said anything. I glare at him to cover my mortification. “I told you. He was in love with someone else.”

He blows out a tense sigh and moves around to the front of the sofa, sinking into it and staring out the window at the pool below. “Are you . . . ? Have you ever . . . been with anyone?” he asks the window.

I slip off the pool table and move to the end of the sofa. “I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.” I’ve had sex exactly four times. Once with the guy I gave my V-card to, twice with a guy I dated for a month or so after that, and once with Jonathan. None of them rocked my world like Blake did in the pool.

He lifts his eyes to mine, and I’m not sure, but I think it’s relief I see in them. “I’ve only ever been with Vanessa . . . my fiancée. We were together for over a year before we even slept together.”

I lower myself onto the other end of the sofa and tuck a leg under me so I’m facing him. “I think it’s nice that you waited. You were in love. It meant something.” Part of me has always wished I’d waited for that—for someone who loved me.

He shakes his head slowly. “It wasn’t that. We just never . . . it wasn’t like this,” he says with a wave of his hand between us. “I’ve never been on fire like this for any other woman.”

My heart skips. “You’re on fire for me?”

He hangs his head, but his smoldering gaze stays locked on mine. “Burning alive.”

I shift deeper into the cushions, bringing my other knee up and drawing it to my chest. “But even if you were never on fire for her, you loved her.”

He bobs a small nod. “I did. She was my first, and I thought she’d be my last.”

“Do you still . . . I mean, if she wanted, would you . . .” I trail off and drop my forehead onto my knee, cringing at myself.

“No.”

I lift my head and see in his eyes that he knows exactly what I was trying to ask. “No?”

“No. She was smart, and we shared a lot of common interests, but—”

“Karate?” I interrupt, because, for some reason, I need to know if he rehearsed that move on someone else, or if it was just mine.

He gives his head a slow shake. “Our commonalities were less . . . physical.”

My heart slams into my rib cage at the flash of hunger in his eyes as he says that.

“I loved her,” he continues, “but what I know now is that there was never any real passion. When she broke it off, it hurt, but looking back, there was also an underlying sense of relief . . . on both of our parts, I think.” He shifts on the sofa so his elbows are on his knees and hangs his head between his shoulders. “I could have married her, and we could have been happy for a while, but I think at some point we both would have figured out something vital was missing. It was like all the parts were there, the heart, the lungs, the flesh and bone, but that intangible thing that makes something alive was missing, if that makes any sense.” He lifts his head and fixes me in his most intense gaze. “I don’t feel that way with you.”

My heart simultaneously aches and pounds as I slide closer. Slowly, I lean in and press a kiss to his lips. When I pull back, I hope he can see the inferno burning inside of me too. I stand and walk out the French doors, down to the pool, where I swim until I don’t have any energy left to do anything stupid. And then I swim some more.


BLAKE AND I have been mostly tiptoeing around each other for the last week, since the pool table incident. His mood has been lighter, but he’s keeping his distance. I’m not sure what that means.

Jenkins was here this morning when I got up, and I sort of freaked out a little, thinking I scared Blake off again. But I guess he’s just at the office for a few hours. I can’t help but hope that means we’re getting closer to the end of this.

It’s after five, and I’ve got a leg hooked over the arm of the living room chair, staring mindlessly at some really bad sitcom on the TV that has Jenkins nearly rolling on the floor laughing, when Blake steps out of the elevator. He’s got a black garment bag over one shoulder, a grocery bag dangling from the other hand, and a spark in his eye.

“Your girlfriend here was telling me you’re some kind of gourmet chef,” Jenkins says from where he’s sprawled on the sofa.

“No,” I say, annoyed, standing from the chair. “I said I was hungry and I wished Blake would get home and cook me something.”

I expect Blake to rebut the girlfriend remark, but he doesn’t say anything. He just shoots me a smile, and something stirs in my chest.