Page 108 of Knot Going Down

He moved through the check-in like a machine. ID, credit card, thank you, room key, shoulders tight, jaw working like he's chewing on something bitter. By the time we got to the room and shut the door behind us, the silence was so loud it made my ears ring.

I hang up my tux and throw my bag onto the chair in the corner. He sets his down more carefully. Precise. The way he does everything.

“You good?” I ask, pretending to fuss with the AC controls even though I don’t really care about the temperature.

Declan doesn’t answer right away. He stands there in the middle of the room, staring at the bed like its got a landmine on it.

I glance over, trying not to look like I’m watching him too closely. But I am. Of course I fucking am.

He’s quiet in a way that feels dangerous. Quiet like he’s thinking too hard, spiraling through options and outcomes and all the ways tomorrow could go wrong.

Or maybe he’s not. Maybe those are just my own thoughts.

“What’s up?” I ask, more direct this time.

He still doesn’t answer. Instead, he unzips his bag and takes out the handcuffs. Grey, heavy-duty, government-issue. The ones he cuffed me with back in Paris before he read me my rights.

Fuck.“I thought we were past this!”

He tosses them at me.

They hit my chest and fall to the floor with a muted little rattle.

“Cuff me to the bed.”

I blink. “Okay. This is either about to get very hot, or very weird.”

He still doesn’t smile. Just crosses his arms and says, “I need to know.”

“Know what?” I ask, bending to pick up the cuffs.

“If I’m cuffed—if I can’t follow, can’t stop you—will you run?”

The words land between us, weighty and sharp.

I sit down in the little desk chair. I have to. This feels too heavy for my knees to work anymore even though my brain is on overdrive. “You still don’t trust me.”

He lifts a shoulder. “I don’t know if I can.”

But he wants to. He wants to trust me. Wants to believe me. I can see it in the way his hands stay fisted at his sides, like he'sfighting himself, watching every move I make like he’s waiting to be proven right. Or wrong.

Or is he testing me because he wants me to fail?

I know what it costs someone like him to offer even this much. After everything. After Kyle. After Emily and Ava and Lucas and the pack he’s trying to build. Going to build. With or without me.

He wants to trust me. That’s the part that gets under my skin and wedges there like a splinter. It would almost be easier if hedidn’t. If this was just a job. Just a temporary alliance.

But it’s not anymore.

This man—this alpha who could crush me without trying—is handing me his cuffs and asking me to stay.

I push to my feet, twisting the cuffs in my hand. “Alright then,” I say quietly, walking toward him. “Let’s find out.”

I snap one cuff around his wrist, thread it through the slat in the headboard, and close the other around his opposite wrist. He doesn’t resist. Doesn’t even flinch. Just watches me the whole time like he’s daring me to flake out. To run.

But I’m not going to. I decided that back in Bermuda. He just doesn’t know it yet.

I step back, leaning against the desk, letting my eyes drag over him.