Page 32 of The Call of Azure (Unexpected Love #3)

God. The way Liam responds to the rope…to my touch.

He just goes lax and lets me move him and tie him and touch him.

I have never tied anyone who has responded so instantly and perfectly the way Liam does.

He makes my knees weak and my heart soar, even though I know this is very likely a one-time thing.

I know that I can’t let myself get sucked into believing that he’s really this perfect.

I can’t let myself start believing that if I asked him to be mine, he’d stay.

He’s not mine to keep, not mine to love.

He’s a professional performance partner and maybe, one day, a friend.

Even so, the way he looks kneeling for me.

The way he’s offered me his body and his mind and his trust. The way he’s collapsed so soft and compliant into my hands.

The look of peace on his face and the way he sways gently into my touch each time my fingertips graze his skin is something I’ll never forget.

These memories are a gift, and I’m grateful to be the one he’s allowed to introduce him to something that might just remain with him for the rest of his life.

Even after I’ve removed the last rope, his eyes stay closed, and his breath is deep and slow.

It feels like sacrilege to pull him away from wherever he’s gone.

It’s always hard to ask someone to come back to the real world after they’ve been enjoying the dissociation of subspace, but it’s even harder with Liam.

While he says he’s able to find this type of calm when he’s lost under ocean waves or in the pool, I know all too well, having helped him through a panic attack, that when his mind shifts away from his body, he doesn’t usually go someplace good.

I settle both hands gently on his shoulders and keep my voice as smooth as I can.

“I’m going to need you to come back to me enough to stand, alright.

I have a nice comfy reading chair in the corner, and we’re going to get you into it.

Then I’ll go make us some tea, and we can just relax and recover together for a while. ”

His eyes flutter open, and they’re so stunningly pale and silver, even in the dim light of my room, that I want to let myself stare into them for hours. I can’t, but I want to, and after the intimacy of our rope session together, I have no doubt that I’ll dream about them tonight.

I'm nearly trembling by the time I get Liam settled in the chair and make my way to the kitchen. I've only tied a handful of people at home, and every one of those instances has definitely been sexual in nature. While what happened between me and Liam wasn't sexual, it didn't feel anything like the professional, almost clinical ties that I engage in with some of my regular partners. My non-sexual rope play usually feels like working with a performance partner because, in a lot of ways, that’s what it is. When I’m working with someone else on silks or poles, or even just in a dance routine, while what’s happening isn’t extremely risky, we still have to trust that the other is going to execute their routine correctly and with the right timing so it looks and feels right and no one gets hurt.

Shibari is its own unique form of art, and while those sessions offer me relaxation and tranquility and a chance to let go and hand control to someone else for a while, the type of intimacy that exists during those scenes is very different than the way it felt for Liam to trust me that way.

With him, it felt like sharing breaths and heartbeats and consciousness.

It felt like he handed me his soul and believed in my ability to protect it.

Even though I'm the king of aftercare and I don't want to leave him alone for very long, I have to pause to take a few slow breaths and pull myself together enough to go back and care for him properly.

The way he describes how he feels when he's in the water makes me hope that his experience tonight was similar enough that his subdrop won't be terrible, but it’s still his first time, and he was so far gone that he had trouble even answering basic questions toward the end.

That's amazing, and it was absolutely my goal to get him to let go like that, but it still means he needs time to process and come back into his body with some tea and cookies and conversation.

With one more long breath, an aggressive admonition to my body that we’re not going to go have sex with him, no matter how intimately connected we feel at the moment, and a quick argument with my heart that what we did was a perfectly normal, nothing out of the ordinary, run of the mill shibari session, I shove three boxes of cookies under my arm and head back to my bedroom where Liam is waiting. For cookies and tea and nothing else.

"Here we go." I make a point of opening the door slowly and keeping my voice low so I don’t startle him when I walk in. His eyes are closed, and his head is tilted back, resting against the chair, and it is absolutely not adorable when he opens a single eye to peek at me with a small smile.

"That was…ya. I feel a bit drunk. Not drunk, stoned, maybe? I've never been stoned, but this is how I imagine being stoned probably feels.”

I snort out a laugh. "You've never been stoned?"

"Nope. I didn't have spare pot money when I was younger, and then it wasn't exactly top on the list of reasons I wanted to get kicked out of the Marines."

"Yeah, okay, that makes sense, but still. I feel like you missed out on a huge rite of passage." I set his tea on the small side table next to the chair and settle on a cushion on the floor at his feet before offering him all three boxes of cookies…which he eyes suspiciously.

"Should I worry that you're telling me I should try pot while handing me baked goods?"

I shake the boxes with my best mischievous grin. "They're Girl Scout cookies. I don't think even I could manage that one. But it would be a fun way to prank Blue and Ethan."

He takes the box of Thin Mints. Of course he does because, honestly, there's no other choice. I don't even know why I buy the others.

"Oh my god!" I bounce excitedly on the pillow. "You're a baker! You could bake a couple…" I add air quotes and wink conspiratorially "…special ones that look and taste the same for me, and I could slip ’em to them on like Christmas or something."

He looks like he can't decide if he wants to laugh or run away.

"I am not making you pot imitation Girl Scout cookies that you can use to ruin your friends’ Christmas!"

"It wouldn't ruin it, and they wouldn't care. But fine, it's not something we have to talk about right now. We can circle back to it later."

He shakes his head with a chuckle before leaning his head back and closing his eyes once more.

"Aside from guessing that this is what it feels like to be stoned, how are you doing?"

His head rolls to the side as he offers me the softest smile I’ve ever seen. “That was magic.”

I sit at Liam’s feet for more than an hour, talking about nothing and watching him enjoy being relaxed and blissed-out, and it’s maybe the most fulfilling hour of my life.

I was able to do that for him. To help him let go of his past and his pain and his responsibilities.

To just…exist for a few moments. Even though I’m not willing to risk my heart looking for love anymore, I want Liam.

I want to tie him again. I want to perform with him.

I want to fuck him and be fucked by him.

I want to sit in our pajamas and eat ice cream and Chinese food and bitch about our days.

I won’t let myself have any of those things, of course.

Hell, even if I wanted to try, he’s never shown any indication that he’d be interested in anything more with me.

He hasn’t even mentioned our run-in last year.

So I’m not going to let myself fall back into my old patterns and start wondering what our future would be like together.

I’ll keep things professional, and maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll end up getting to tie him again.

But tonight…tonight only…when I slip into bed alone, I’ll let myself dream.