Oh gods. I’m so damn tempted to strip, partially because I know he thinks I won’t do it and partially because I really do want to know what he’s talking about and how it would feel. But even though I trust that Finn has no ulterior motives for helping Dmitri and me, it’s still not a great idea to get mixed up with a royal of the Night Court. No matter how devilishly tempting he may be.
Affecting a casual smile, I take a step back so his hand drops away from my chin. “I appreciate the offer, but that won’t be necessary. I’m sure I can get the gist with the hitching momo thingy.”
His lips twist to the side as he tries to keep from smiling, but the twinkle in his eyes belies his amusement. “Half-hitch futomomo,” he corrects, then takes the ropes and scissors from me. “Sit on the floor and use the couch as a back rest.”
I do as requested and watch him get situated while I sip the whiskey. He lowers himself to the floor on my left, facing me. Every coil of rope I’ve seen of his is stored the same way. I imagine he winds it in a circle around his hand and elbow until it gets to a certain length, then takes it off and finishes it by wrapping what’s left around the middle until it’s neatly secured with no overlapping lines. It makes it easy to undo and shake out like he’s doing now.
“What are the scissors for?”
“Safety. If something goes wrong to where there’s a risk of injury, or you feel panicked for any reason and need out, I don’t waste time in undoing it; I cut you free.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Does that happen often?”
“With a knowledgeable and responsible rigger, it almost never happens because of injury. It only happened three times for me when I was still learning. The first two, my mentor had to point out the problem, but I knew enough by the third time to recognize it myself, and it hasn’t happened since. Not for that reason.
“But there have been plenty of times over the years where a bottom has wanted out quickly. Not from anything I did, but because their mental state in that moment changed and they couldn’t continue the scene. When that happens, I cut the rope away as fast as I can, then give them plenty of aftercare.”
At the mention of aftercare, my brain finally picks up on other things Finn said that makes me realize there’s another purpose for shibari besides art and comfort.
“This is also a kink,” I say, marveling at the revelation. “That’s what you mean by ‘bottoms’ and why they’re usually naked. You’re talking about submissives.”
Though I’ve always been sexually uninhibited, I never had any desire to delve into the world of BDSM and kink like Dmitri. I don’t think I know enough to be even minimally educated about it, but I’m not completely ignorant about it either. I know the basics just from overhearing my brother’s men swapping stories over the years, and some things I was curious enough to Google.
Finn wraps the end of the baby pink rope around my ankle and starts working as he talks. “A ‘bottom’ refers to someone who, for that particular scene, is the one having things done to them. But that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily a sub. I’ve done plenty of scenes where my bottom is a Dominant or Top.”
“What are you?”
“When it comes to D/s scenes, I’m very much a Dom, but I’ve been a rope bottom hundreds of times for platonic or non-sexual scenes because, like I said, rope feels good.”
“My brother is a Dom, too, right?”
He glances up at me with a smirk as he pulls the knot tight to anchor the rope on my ankle. “Your brother’s a Master and a sadist. What he does with his subs makes me look like a Golden Retriever by comparison.”
My eyes grow wide at that. I’ve seen Dmitri revel in causing an enemy pain more times than I can count, but I can’t imagine him deriving pleasure from causing pain to a lover.
Since the last thing I want to imagine is my brother in a sexual scenario of any kind, I’m grateful for the distraction when Finn begins the first row of the futomomo. His long fingers guide the doubled-up rope along the inside of my thigh, grazing mere inches from the juncture where a touch ceases to be innocent.
“I know I haven’t known you long, but I wouldn’t have guessed you as the Dom sort.”
A corner of his mouth quirks up. “I’m not surprised. I make it a point to never be what anyone expects.”
Swirling the amber liquid around in my glass, I study him thoughtfully. “I’ll admit, Prince Finnian, I do find you intriguing. I’m curious what makes a male like you tick.”
He pulls the rope tight across the top of my thigh, then pauses and holds the tension and asks me if it feels okay. I tell him it does, and he picks the conversation up again as he continues with the rope. “I’ll make you a deal. For as long as it takes me to complete this, we’ll do question for question, answer for answer.”
I think about that for a minute, weighing the potential pitfalls of revealing things about myself against satisfying my curiosity about him. “What if there’s something we don’t want to answer?”
“We each get one pass, so use it wisely.”
“Deal,” I say, then go first before he can get the jump on me. “Our clan has never had any dealings with either Celestial Court, for obvious reasons, so how did you and Dmitri start working together?”
“He saw me sparring at the Blood Sport in Vegas and approached me with a deal. I help him find you and he’d owe me a debt.” Again, his fingers guide the ropes along my inner thigh causing frissons of electricity to trail in their wake. “I agreed, but I didn’t do it to have the infamous D’Yavol in my debt. I did it because of the look in his eyes—like he was consumed with loss and a breath away from drowning in it. No way could I reject a man like that.”
I swallow past the lump forming in my throat. Of course I knew my brother would’ve been upset, for lack of a better word. But I always pictured him more rage-filled than broken. Razor-sharp guilt flays me open hearing Finn describe the depth of my brother’s desolation.
Finn continued, distracting me from the dark path of my thoughts. “We came up with a plan to insert me into the UFCO to try to gain information from other fighters. I created a glamour alias and started making a name for myself as a new up-and-coming Dark. I became the guy to beat, so I was accepting challenges left and right.”
I’m beginning to understand. “Dmitri needed someone good enough to win and appeared unrelated to the clan, because anyone involved in my disappearance wouldn’t risk fighting a Romanov member and being made to give up information in a Debt Fight.”
“Exactly. The first several months we chased down a lot of possible leads that went nowhere. We finally caught a break when Edevane left your Armas behind, but we still couldn’t find where he was keeping you. Then I realized that our only chance was to turn his own playbook against him.”
“How so?” I ask, watching intently as he holds the two strands of rope against my outer thigh, then tucks them underneath the first double row and pulls it through the top to create what looks like a half-knot. He makes some small adjustments to ensure everything is tight—but not too tight—and then repeats the wrapping process.
“By getting one of his own to walk us right in. I used Edevane’s general’s ego against him and got him to challenge the nobody Dark Fae about to break his record. When we fought, I sandbagged my performance for nine rounds, doing just well enough until it turned into a Debt Fight he thought he could win. Then I put him down, and he was forced to help us.”
“Wow,” I say, impressed and not a little humbled that he would go to those lengths for a stranger, even once he knew who I really was—a female who by rights should be his enemy. “Thank you, Finn. You went above and beyond to save me, and I haven’t been the most gracious recipient of your help. If there’s ever anything I can do for you…”
His eyes look up from what he’s doing. “You’ll be the first to know.” Heat pools low in my belly. I’m given a reprieve when he says, “My turn.”
“Ask away.”
“You said you don’t know, but do you have any theories on why your dad didn’t have your Armas made with Ember? That’s the element found in Summer Court’s region of Tír Tairngire, right?”
I tilt my head thoughtfully as I study him. “You seem to know quite a bit about a place you’ve never been.”
He gives a half-shrug and keeps his attention on what he’s doing. “I think it’s a natural thing to be curious about where your family comes from. Humans research their ancestry all the time. The only difference is, my research doesn’t come from historical annals as much as it comes from the fiction section. But if you read enough of it, you start to see the patterns and similarities. And those are the instances that were more than likely true accounts—or at least based on them.”
“Why not just ask your parents? They were probably young at the time of exile, but they would have lived there long enough to know at least most of what you were curious about.”
