Page 82 of Ruthless Knot

And fuck me, but every mark makes my cock harder.

I’m no stranger to beauty as currency.

In the underground, your body is your ticket out. You become a legend, or you become someone’s toy. Either way, they want you flawless. Hair exactly so, smile just right, wrists delicate enough to fit inside a cuff without bruising — unless they want the bruises.

You learn fast:pain is part of the performance, and desire is just another kind of violence.

She knows this.

Lives by it.

Her nakedness isn’t weakness—the way she stands, loose-limbed, slightly twitching, toes flexing and unflexing as shestares at my restrained form. There’s nothing vulnerable about her. It’s all power. It’s all ritual.

She paces the foot of the bed, toe tapping out a silent count on the polished wood floor—two, four, two, four—like she’s winding herself up for an entrance, a dance, some moment where she gets to show the world exactly how much of a monster she is.

And I am completely, absolutely, fucking helpless for her.

The scent is everywhere.

Cotton candy, thick and sweet enough it coats the back of my throat. Cherry blossom high note, overlaid with frost—sugar attacking every inch of exposed skin. Clean linen underneath, grounding, a whisper of home in a world that hates softness. Metallic edge now, a stress note, a warning—but not fear. More like excitement, gleaming on her tongue.

Every inhale is her. Every exhale is want.

She doesn’t speak at first.

Just watches me—cataloging, assessing, the way I did to her in the rain and the post office, two animals circling to see which one gets to eat and which one gets to run.

I’m not running.

I’m not even pretending.

I want her too much to play at disinterest.

Her eyes catch mine—heterochromatic, blue and green, the colors more brilliant in the dark than they were under the stage lights, shot through now with insanity and precision.

She giggles.

High, bright, just this side of deranged.

The giggle breaks the tension, splintering the silence with a wild edge that makes my heart stutter. She slaps a hand over her mouth, eyes going wide, and then she does it again, just to see what happens.

I grin.

Can’t help it.

“Got me right where you want me, huh?” Voice rough because talking is the only thing holding my sanity together at this point.

She cocks her head.

Steps closer.

Her hair is loose now, falling around her face in tangled, damp waves—pink-highlighted silver, like a burn left on glass. Strands cling to her neck and collarbone, beads of water still tracing down her chest from the shower. She hasn’t bothered to dry off completely. There are droplets clinging to the downy hair on her arms, the soft hollow between her breasts, the ridged curve of the scar on her belly.

She looks like she was sculpted from a cloud, then run through a war zone.

I want to touch her so badly that I almost break the cuffs just to do it.

But I don’t.