“Think of the rudeness. I’m offended by how he just threw it out there. I hate feeling like a vagina with legs.” Cary paused and looked up at me, his eyes softening with sympathy. “I’m sorry, baby girl. You’re so strong, so much stronger than I am. I just don’t see you carrying around the baggage I do.”

“I don’t think I am, most of the time.” I looked away because I didn’t want to talk about what we’d been through in our pasts. “It’s not like I wanted him to ask me out on a date. But there has to be a better way to tel a woman you want to take her to bed.”

“You’re right. He’s an arrogant douche. Let him lust after you until he has blue bal s. Serves him right.” That made me smile. Cary could always do that. “I doubt that man has ever had blue bal s in his life, but it’s a fun fantasy.”

He shut his netbook with a decisive snap. “What should we do tonight?”

“I was thinking I’d like to go check out that Krav Maga studio in Brooklyn.” I’d done a little research after meeting Parker Smith during my workout at Equinox and as the week passed, the thought of having that kind of raw, physical outlet for stress seemed more and more ideal.

I knew it wouldn’t be anything close to banging the hel out of Gideon Cross, but I suspected it would be a lot less dangerous to my health.

The converted warehouse Parker Smith used as his studio was a brick-faced building in a formerly industrial area of Brooklyn presently struggling to revitalize. The space was vast, and the massive metal delivery-bay doors offered no exterior clue as to what was taking place inside. Cary and I sat in aluminum bleachers, watching a half-dozen combatants on the mats below.