EIGHTH KNOT #2
I bow. Half-assed, barely bending, eyes still on him.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
“That’s not a proper bow, Kaito,” he says, dead calm.
A low growl escapes me. I clench my fists until I hear something pop in my knuckles.
“Don’t make me make you kneel.”
I breathe out hard, then bow the right way this time, deep and proper. My head almost hits my knees.
“Sorry,” I say again.
Naoya-san bows to his coworkers, too.
“Forgive my pupil’s bad manners. Sadly, I’ll have to leave early and deal with him.”
Everyone nods fast, obviously too scared to do anything else.
He turns, walks past me without a glance, drops a few bills on my table, and says, “Let’s go.”
And I follow.
My whole body’s buzzing, every nerve alive and screaming, torn between wanting to wreck something and wanting to drop to my knees the second we’re out that door.
* * *
He makes me drive to my own damn place.
“You don’t get to step foot in my home until you’ve remembered how to behave,” he had said.
That shit stings. Makes me want to snap the wheel in half. But there’s this other part of me that likes it. Him in my house, under my roof. Like I’ve been thrown a bone after getting kicked.
When we get there, he steps out of the car first. Doesn’t even wait for me to open the door for him. Inside, he lines up his shoes, sets his bag down neat.
And fuck, he looks so out of place here. My house is a dump—cracked floor, ashtrays overflowing, smell of cigarettes and trash all over. He’s the only shiny thing this place will ever see.
He walks in, eyes scanning the room, then stops dead center. His face shifts. That calm disappointment hardens into something much more focused.
“Your tanto,” he says. “Give it to me.”
“What?”
“Your tanto. Now.”
My hand goes to it before I even think.
“Fuck no. She’s mine.”
“A tool’s a responsibility,” he says, hand out. “You proved you can’t be trusted with it today. This is not a request.”
My jaw locks, teeth grinding. I slam the sheathed tanto into his palm. Feels like handing over my soul, not just a blade.
“Good. Now, strip and kneel in the center of the room.”
My fingers move on their own. Jacket, shirt, belt—gone. My cock’s still hard. Pisses me off. I drop to my knees where he told me to.
He comes closer, silent, pulls off his tie. My heart kicks once when I think he’s gonna bind me with it. But he doesn’t. He loops it around my neck instead, loose, just hanging there.
Then he takes my shirt off the floor and sits on the couch. Without looking at me, he starts cutting it into long stripes.
I stay still, hands on my thighs, eyes forward, watching his fingers work.
Every slice is another second I’m not allowed to move, not allowed to speak.
Every time I almost open my mouth, his words slam back into my skull.
“I didn’t give you permission to speak.” So I sit here like a damn dog, jaw tight, eyes locked on his hands.
And he doesn’t even look at me once.
I want to grab him. Want to fucking kill him and beg him to kill me. My body’s on fire, mind all over the place. Every muscle alive, vibrating with the ache of being seen and of being ignored.
Naoya-san starts twisting the strips between his fingers, turning them into rope. He takes his sweet fucking time. Turns every piece of my shirt into a length of rope way thinner than the ones he usually uses. Thin enough to cut skin if pulled hard—and fuck if that’s not a turn-on.
Minutes pass. Hours. I can’t tell. I only know that my cock’s throbbing against the air and my balls are tight, and by the time he’s done, my body feels like it’s boiling from the inside.
Then he stands, rope looped in one hand, and crouches down behind me.
“You’ve disappointed me today, Kaito.”
His voice’s flat, cuts right through my gut. I think about spitting at him, see if that’s bratty enough to earn some spanking.
“I thought you understood. I thought we had built something. A sense of structure and respect.” He wraps the rope around my wrists, the fibers dragging over my pulse and biting when he pulls. “But today you decided to remind me what happens when I mistake desire for discipline.”
“Rules exist for a reason,” he continues. “Boundaries. Order. Without them, what are we?” He cinches a knot between my wrists. Tight and perfect. “Just men with urges and no control. You’re better than that, aren’t you?”
My mouth almost moves—the lying “yes” caught behind my teeth—but I stop.
His hand lands on my shoulder. “Down.”
I grit my teeth and drop, chest to the floor.
Then he starts working my legs. Rope sliding, looping, crossing over itself with that same goddamn precision.
He bends one leg back, folding my shin tight against the thigh until my muscles strain and the rope starts to bite.
I grunt, my body jerking, my face pressed into the floor.
“You crave restraint because you can’t be trusted with freedom, Kaito. You proved that tonight. You embarrassed me, humiliated me, and now—” he tugs, the rope locking hard around my thigh “—you’ll learn why submission is a privilege.”
Naoya-san slips his hands under my hips and forces them up. My face slams into the floor, and the ropes bite my wrists when the new position forces my arms even more. He pries my legs wide, locking them open, each knot pulling them to the side, exposing my pelvis and tilting my hips up.
Humiliating? Yeah. Hot as hell? Also yeah. Because every time he ties me like this, it means he’s gonna bury his fingers in me.
“What now, sensei? You gonna spank me or something?”
He lets out a sigh.
“I was about to commend your obedience for holding your tongue until I gave you permission.”
He steps closer, and I can smell his cologne, that neat, expensive shit that doesn’t belong in my apartment.
“It’s a shame. You almost had it right.”
I snort.
“Guess it’s hard to train a mad dog not to bark.”
“Mad dogs get put down. Is that what you want, Kaito? To be discarded?”
My throat locks. Fuck no. That’s the opposite of what I want. I want his hands on me, his rage focused, his control absolute.
“No,” I grind out, the word scraping raw.
“Then stop barking.” His fingers trace the rope cinched tight around my thigh, right where the muscle strains. “You understand your failure? Explain it.”
My jaw works. Where the fuck do I start? Stalking him like a creep? Mouthing off in front of his coworkers? Dragging him into that shitshow? Fuck.
“Got loud,” I mutter, not even able to look him in the eye. “Drew attention.”
“Specifics, Kaito.”
“Followed you into that izakaya ‘cause I was pissed you were with those boring-ass assholes.”
“Was that the whole reason?” He presses. His hand moves higher, fingers skating over the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, dangerously close to my cock, still painfully hard. The proximity makes me jerk, ropes biting instantly.
“That bitch was flirting with you. That’s why.”
He snorts a little laugh.
“So you were jealous.” His fingers dig into the muscle of my thigh.
I gasp, arching against the restraints. “You acted without thinking because a woman smiled at me. You decided to behave like a spoiled brat because you wanted my attention. You embarrassed me in front of my boss, Kaito, just because you still haven’t learned trust.”
“Didn’t mean—”
“You never mean,” he interrupts, cold anger finally bleeding into his voice. “You act. Like an animal. Every time.”
His hand leaves my thigh and moves to the loose tie still draped around my neck. He pulls it taut, not choking, but a firm, inescapable pressure against my windpipe.
“Count.”
I don’t ask what, because that’s the answer to my question.
The first slap cracks across my ass cheek, stinging as hell. Pain flares, bright and clean.
“One.”
“I didn’t plan to use pain on you tonight, Kaito. You’re a man already used to it. But you need to feel what it is to be unable to answer back.”
The second slap lands on the same spot, harder. The sting doubles, turning into a deep, burning ache that throbs through my hips. I can feel the muscle twitch under his hand, my whole body fighting itself not to twist away.
“Two.”
“You need to learn that, with me, your hands are useless and your mouth stays shut.”
Another slap.
“Three.”
“I can feel how your body wants to answer with violence. I can feel the muscle wanting to strike.”
Another slap.
“Four.”
“You need to surrender.”
I bite the inside of my cheek, eyes burning. Every nerve’s begging me to fight back, but all I can do is grind my teeth and take it.
He doesn’t rush.
Each hit’s clean, switching between ass and thighs, always avoiding the rope marks. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. My cock throbs against the floorboards, a traitorous pulse of need syncing with the impacts. Every slap drives home my failure, my stupidity, my desperate craving for his control.
He stops at thirty.
His hand presses against my burning skin, heat radiating through the ache. Thirty hits. Thirty reminders I fucked up as his sub.
Then his hand lifts, and I hear the soft rustle of fabric, the slide of his suit jacket hitting the floor somewhere behind me.
His footsteps are quiet, crossing the small room.
My apartment’s a cramped shithole, but Naoya-san moves through it like he owns the place.
And right now he does, right? Because he owns me.
I twist my head when his shadow falls over me again. He’s holding my tanto.
“This belongs to you,” he says.
“Yeah,” I grind out. My throat’s dry. “So?”
“So,” he murmurs, his thumb tracing the worn lacquer of the sheath. “A blade requires discipline and respect. Qualities you lack.”
Anger flares, hot and stupid. There’s no way a fucking sensei will understand my tanto. The last thing she wants is discipline. She wants blood and lives.
“Fuck you. I know how to handle her.”
“Do you?” He tilts his head slightly. “Or do you just use it without thought? Like you do to your fists and your tongue?”