“I need to finish this one first,” he said, his breath warm against my shoulder as he worked. “Then we can discuss more advanced applications.”
“Why bother finishing the tie?”
He scoffed. “Shibari—also known as Kinbaku—celebrates the body,”he explained, his fingers gliding across the patterns along my ribs. “Every knot is designed to enhance, to display, to honor the art of what it holds. It would be sacrilegious to not at least attempt to finish the tie, Violet.”
My cunt purred at the thought, but I remained calm. “I don’t like waiting, Rowan.”
“I am aware,” he said drily. “Tell me, do you know the differences between Shibari and Hojojutsu?”
I shook my head. “No, but I have a feeling you’re about to tell me.”
He smiled at that. “Hojojutsu was a precursor to modern-day handcuffs. The knots are designed to dig into pressure points and apply stress to joints. It was meant to break the body. With Hojojutsu,” he whispered into my ear, “It is time that becomes the torturer.”
“Oh. Interesting history lesson.” I waited until he’d made several more passes with the rope before I spoke again. “So are you going to tell me about the girl from class?”
His hands stilled for a fraction of a second—barely noticeable, but in our time together, I’d learned to read his microexpressions.
“What about her?” He resumed his work, threading rope beneath an existing loop.
“Don’t play dumb, Rowan.” I tried to turn my head to look at him, but the rope’s positioning made the movement awkward. “You were totally fixated on her like she was. . . I don’t know, someone important.”
“She might have been.”
“Might have been what?” Frustration bled into my tone. “An ex-girlfriend? Someone you fucked? Someone youwantedto fuck?”
“None of those things.” He tugged the rope tighter—not painfully, but enough to make his point. “And you are being a brat.”
“Then tell me who she was.” I refused to let this go, jealousy coiling hot and ugly in my chest. I hated the feeling, hated that I cared enough to feel it, but I couldn’t seem to stop. “You don’t just chase random women through academic buildings for no reason.”
“Unless they are avoiding their bodyguard likesomeoneI know.” He moved around to face me, his expression serious now. Gone was the playful dominance, replaced by something harder. More cautious. “She was not a woman I knew personally.” He held my gaze. “But I believe she may be connected to the murder on campus.”
The jealousy evaporated instantly, replaced by sharp focus. “Connected how?”
Rowan sighed, moved back behind me, and returned to his work with the rope. I felt him creating a new anchor point at my back, his fingers brushing my spine with clinical efficiency. “I do not know. Not yet. Hence why I wanted to speak with her.”
“That sounds like bullshit.”
I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the scowl in his voice. “Why would I lie—”
“If you wanted her number, at least bemanenough to admit it instead of—”
“Tfu!You are not listening with your ears or thinking with your head. You are listening to your gut and thinking with your heart,” he said as he tightened a knot for emphasis.
“Don’t turn into a fucking fortune cookie to avoid admitting the truth! Why were you checking her out?”
The rope tightened again. Not enough to hurt—it actually felt incredible—but enough that I felt his frustration through the ropes. “I already told you. She may be connected—”
“And I already told youbullshit,” I growled the last word, my throat raw with anger. “Stop fucking lying to me.”
He tightened the rope even more. “I would not lie to you, Violet. But I need to hunt down—”
“Hunt down?” I laughed as I said it. It was a cruel laugh, incredulous and dismissive. “You’re not the police, Rowan.”
“The police will be clueless to catch this thing, and itwillkill again unless—”
“Thisthing? What do you mean bything, Rowan?”
His hands stilled. I felt some slack loosen the knot he was working on before he moved back around to face me. “Promise me you will not overreact to what I am about to tell you.”
