Unwound (Mastered 2)

“So what if I want a pre-nup?”

Ronin carried her to her bedroom and fell onto the bed with her. “What would be in your pre-nup?”

She twisted a hank of his hair. “Oh, I don’t know. I just wanted to sound cool, so you didn’t think I wasn’t bringing anything of value into this marriage.”

“You’re bringing everything I’ll ever need into this marriage. You’re bringing you.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you too. So that’s why I need to know about the wedding. Big? Small?”

“A civil ceremony will be fine.” Amery turned her head and looked at him. “How soon you want to do this?”

“You busy tomorrow?”

“Ronin Black, just because I’m not the fancy wedding type doesn’t mean I’ll get married in jeans and a T-shirt; nor will I let you wear your damn gi. Besides, Chaz would never forgive me if he didn’t get to go dress shopping with me.”

“This is about making Chaz happy?”

“No, sweetheart. It’s about making me happy. I’m getting married once. With a once-in-a-lifetime event, I deserve to spend a little time oohing and aahing over sequins, lace, satin, and tulle.”

“Whatever you want. It’d be nice if we had a date picked, so my mother can be here.”

Amery looked away.

“If you want to wait and see how things go with your parents so they can be here too—”

“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t. They’d ruin it by demanding we had a ceremony of their choosing. And I don’t really care who’s there other than you.”

“Me either.” He kissed her. “Besides. I’m all about the honeymoon.”

“Nothing extravagant,” she warned him.

“It’s cute how you think you get a say in that.” He kissed her on the nose. “Fair warning: I plan to spoil the hell out of you when you’re my wife, and you will have to just deal with it.”

EPILOGUE

Three months later

RONIN’S spinning back kick connected with Bob’s head. He kept his balance as he reversed the move, coming from the opposite side this time. Focusing on rapid-fire blows to the knee, then feeling the connection of his heel to the jaw. Another satisfying crack of flesh on flesh.

Or what passed as flesh. Although “Bob,” the full-sized training dummy, wobbled, it remained stationary. The high-tech piece of equipment allowed Ronin to continue to train at his advanced level—he literally didn’t have to pull any punches or worry that punches would come flying back at him.

Still, it wasn’t the same as being in a real fight.

You’re not ready for that. You’re not rushing this.

His future as far as contact sports remained up in the air. He’d postponed his annual trip to train with his sensei even when he’d feared his teacher would release him if he couldn’t keep up with the requirements for his belt level. What sucked was his teacher had refused to discuss it until after Ronin’s next doctor’s appointment.

These last three months had been frustrating with so much in limbo. The only thing he could do was push forward. Focus on what he could do instead of what he couldn’t. That thought made him smile. For all the times Amery had commended him on his Zen attitude in the past, now she was the one who’d kept him upbeat about his future on the combat side of martial arts.

“Wearing that shit-eating grin while you’re beating the f**k outta poor Bob is some scary stuff, Sensei.”

Ronin leveled one more kick to Bob’s midsection before he stopped and looked over at Knox. “Hilarious.”

“He’s holding up well, considering that you’re trying to kill him,” Knox added.

“Bob is not much of a challenge.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with his forearm and gave Knox a questioning look. “How long have you been standing there, watching me?”

“I just got here. I know we’d talked about grappling today, but I have a message from your wife.”

Ronin couldn’t stop his smile. He wondered if he’d ever get used to that feeling of male satisfaction that Amery was his—only his—forever. “What’s the message?”

“She broke the ‘no observation’ rule again. She watched you beating on Bob just to make sure you weren’t doing too much. Does that mean anything to you?”

It meant everything to him. He’d been out of sorts the past few days, and his sexy wife knew exactly what would pull him out of it. He began to unwrap his hands. “Yeah. I know what it means.” Ronin fished his wedding ring out of the special cup he placed it in when he worked out. He’d gotten so used to the weight of the metal circling his finger he felt naked without it.

“Amery seemed concerned about that.” Knox pointed to the large bandage on Ronin’s right arm that had started to slip off, revealing a bloody piece of gauze taped to his skin. “What happened?”

Ronin didn’t respond.

Knox sighed. “I don’t wanna know, do I?”

“Nope. But I’ll tell you tomorrow anyway.” Ronin slipped on his gi top. “I’m officially off the clock. See you at the meeting in the morning.”

By the time he’d reached the penthouse, his arm throbbed. Getting sweaty and putting pressure on the muscles hadn’t been the brightest idea, but he’d been anesthetized during the procedure. He needed the pain afterward as a reminder of why he’d done it.