I have lived for this moment.
I don’t know how or why, just that it’s something I have always needed, to be told it was okay—that I was okay. I am going to be okay.
I don’t fight her touch. I lean into it, I welcome it, my hands still blindly tying knots around her body until my simple corset is done.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
Her cheek is still pressed against mine. She pulls back enough to whisper against my lips. “Good.”
“How good?” I growl.
Her swallow is slow as her eyes search mine. “I’m not saying goodbye.”
“Pardon?”
“So, you’re going to have to teach me how to tie your knots, how to show your truth. I don’t want to know about the knots that represent killings. I want to learn how to tie the ones that represent your pain. Can you do that? Can you?”
“You’re brave,” I whisper. Something in my chest pinches, my heart maybe? I rub it and cup her face with both hands. “I like it.”
“I like you.”
“Part of me wants you to; the other part rejects it just like I’m rejected.” I frown. “Do you think this is the drug, or was this inevitable?”
“Does it matter?” she asks in a soft voice.
“Does it?” I counter.
She stands on her tiptoes, still bound, and kisses me. “What do you think?”
“I think I would miss your taste even if I was dead.”
She smiles and kisses me deeper.
I growl, wrapping my arms around her, pinning her against my own body, and then walking her back against the cement wall.
She lets out a little pant when I start to undo the knots.
“No.” She shakes her head. “Leave them.”
“But—”
“Leave them and love me.”
Her voice echoes in my head, this quiet moment with blood on my hands and on my soul.
Love me.
I want to be loved too.
I need to be loved too.
I’m fast as I tug down her boxers and kick them to the side along with her thong.
She’s barefoot making it even nicer and sexier as I unbuckle my jeans and lower them onto my hips.
Her eyes bulge when I spring free, completely bare to her, ready to take her as if it’s my first time.
Does she see my need?
Does she feel it?
Her hands clench into fists at her sides as she squeezes her eyes shut then opens them.
I slide my hand between her thighs. She’s wet; she’s ready for me even now, bound, watching me guide myself to her heat. My eyes don’t leave hers as I fill her slowly to the hilt, holding her body up against the wall above me; I move my hips with a grunt.
Her head presses back against the cement, exposing her neck. I want to watch her as much as I want to kiss her again. I decide to press my lips against her pulse and kiss upward toward the corner of her mouth.
I can tell she wants to reach for me.
Her hands flinch at her sides.
I grip one of them and squeeze as our hips roll in perfect rhythm with each other; our eyes lock when I pull back.
Her cheeks are flushed.
“I love you.” It is my truth.
I could tie another knot with this truth.
Tears slide down her cheeks as my hips lose the rhythmic control, as I lose control of my body and pound into her, needing to feel the release, needing to feel her thighs clench around me as her heat sucks me whole and proves she needs this as much as I do.
“I love you too,” she whispers and then kisses me as I pin her against that wall, as I lock our bodies in place and finish inside her. She collapses against my chest, her head resting on my shoulder. “I love you.” I don’t know why she repeats it, but I needed to hear it.
I’m fascinated by the fact that I already miss her.
Something nudges my brain.
Something sharp and painful.
I shake my head.
She grips it with both hands and repeats. “I love you… Sim.”
I relinquish my control.
I exhale.
I go toward the darkness.
I’m warm.
I’m content.
And I’m staring at Izzy, my vision blurry. I feel like myself and yet… not like myself. I’m literally inside her, pinning her against a fucking wall and horrified that she’s crying and fucking tied up. What the fuck?
“Iz!” I jerk away from her, embarrassed for a minute, and then petrified I hurt her as I wipe myself on my shirt and tug up my jeans. I can see the evidence of our sex on her legs, on her.
I did this.
I’m a monster.
“I love you,” she whispers.
“How did—” I’ve never told a soul, not even King, about my love for Shibari or the fact my dad taught it to me when I was sixteen. I’d always wanted to share it with her but felt weird asking, almost like it was this dark part of myself that I shouldn’t let out, just like everything else I’m ashamed of.