Breathing hard, Knox reached over me, and one-handed, on each side, he deftly undid the knots around my knees and flicked the rope away from them. I sat up, and he helped me, pulling me back to rest against his chest as he settled his weight against the headboard. We both sucked in air, breathing hard in tandem, and I rested my head back against his strong, muscled shoulder. "Knox," I panted.
He kissed my cheek, working at the knots around my waist. "Gem."
"That was… awesome," I breathed. "Seriously."
"Mm," he said, pressing his lips to the juncture between my shoulder and neck, his hands still working to undo what I now saw was a beautiful harness along my belly and hips. It was perfectly geometric and almost like jewelry in its construction. "I am relieved to hear that."
"You seemed worried," I observed as he finished undoing the lovely harness along my middle and moved to untie my wrists.
"I was," he admitted. "Shibari isn't for everyone."
"And you really enjoy it," I said, understanding where his thoughts must be going. If I didn't love it, then he would be disappointed, and if I knew him—which I felt I did after several weeks together—he would definitely give it up if he still wanted to be intimate with me. Rook was like that, I'd noticed. He seemed marble and uncaring on the outside, but his actions revealed his inner nature far more than his words did. He was selfless. He cared how others felt.
"I do," he agreed. "And if you didn't, it would have been fine. But," he unlaced the beautiful, perfect ladder of knots betweenmy arms with quick precision, "if you do enjoy it, then all the better."
I turned my head, looking up at his chiseled jaw and the attractive intelligence in his eyes as he focused on the rope. I wanted to ask him if he wanted to continue this, but I didn't want it to sound like a "What are we?" sort of question. Those had never gone well for me in the past. Men didn't appear to enjoy labels for things, whereas I craved them. I needed expectations. I needed to know how attached I could become or have a heads-up if I needed to guard my heart. "Well, I enjoy being with you," I said, so softly I wondered if he'd heard me.
Knox finished unwrapping me, and tossing the rope aside, he rubbed the little pink indents from where the rope had spiraled up my arms. He kissed my temple. "I don't just like being with you, Gem." He moved away just enough that we made eye contact. "I am yours. However long you want me, I'm yours."
Warmth suffused my chest, and I fought back a prickle of tears at the corners of my eyes. "I want you, too."
He kissed me softly, squeezing me against him and then settling back again so I could snuggle comfortably in his arms. He closed his eyes, letting his head drop back against the headboard before he released a contented sigh. "Good. You're not getting away from me now. Don't even try."
Chapter twenty-six
Knox
Rule#17: Label what's yours.
The next two days with Gemma tripped along like an arpeggio, dancing over every happy nerve in my brain. We found a rhythm together like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we'd wanted to all along, but our points of pride had prevented it from happening. Now that we had both admitted we liked each other, our days fell into step with easy grace, and I found myself looking forward to the mornings and basking in the glow of our evenings together.
Gemma was not what I would call an easy-going person; if emotions were dosed out like drips from a stopper, she dumped out half the bottle every time she had one. But for me, an empty well long since dried out of anything stronger than apathetichope, every drop of essence from Gemma's personality was welcome.
The problem was, I had a shadow of guilt hanging over our new relationship, and I wasn’t sure how to fix it. On the one hand, my mother had offered the apartment as anengagementgift. That was horribly tempting, and Gemma seemed willing to go along with the ruse for as long as it served us. On the other hand, it was wrong. I knew my mother didn’t want this wedding to take place, so I knew she had something else up her sleeve. Either a trick, or a plan to chase Gemma away.
The uneasiness followed me to work and back home, only to be banished by Gemma’s presence again. Azura was hard at work, plucking apart the particulars of our lease and trying to find loopholes. In the meantime, I tried not to think about it.
Which was easy to do when Gemma was so distracting—disconcertingly so. She texted me at four pm on a Tuesday that she had a solution to our "Pumpkin problem" and to meet me at the hardware store after my clinical hours ended. I caught the gist of the text from my smartwatch as I typed notes into a patient's file, and I smiled to myself faintly.
My patient, a heavily pregnant mother in her last trimester, leaned back on one hand, which crinkled the paper behind her. "Dr. Rook, you can smile? I was not aware of this."
I glanced up with guilt warming my neck. "Sorry. It was unprofessional of me—I'm not used to getting texts throughout the day." I typed into her notes that we needed to re-check her blood pressure in two weeks. It was borderline today.
"New girlfriend?" she asked with raised eyebrows. She had a thin face and carried her pregnancy a little deeper in her torso than most women. She looked barely four months pregnant at more than eight.
I gave her a surprised glance. "Is it that… obvious?"
"Very," she grinned.
I cleared my throat, closing out of the chart. "Yes, it's new. I won't make a habit of checking texts during our time together, though. Do you have any more questions?"
"Nope," she replied in a perfunctory way, straightening. "You go get her, Doc. You've been single for all three of my pregnancies, you know."
I frowned. "How… did you notice that?"
She held up her wedding ring. "The really serious ones last. I didn't notice any of these on you."
"Hm," I smiled, closing out of her chart and giving her my attention. "Observant of you. Any words of wisdom?"
